Monthly Archives: August 2017

Interviews with Eidolon – Colton

To say he was handsome was an understatement.

Of course, I’d seen him on campus. The infamous son of a disgraced Senator. The golden boy banned from the Ivy League and thrown to the almost-but-not-quite community college wolves. A walking myth surrounded in stories.

Torture. Rape. Walk-in freezers that became prisons for unsuspecting girls dazzled by the name. Suicides and heartbreak. Immense cash payouts that silenced tongues, stole words and suffocated any threat of prison time. And at the center of it all stood this gorgeous, notorious, dangerous enigma.

Now this enigma stood in front of me.

My iced coffee sat in front of me, my book to the side, oversized purse on the floor tucked between my feet. The cafe wasn’t full. There was no crowd jostling. Nor was there a need to partner up with a stranger just to find a place to sit. There were tables free. Pockets of privacy to claim, a canopy of ominous clouds and the threat of sudden heavy rain keeping most safely at home.

Yet this “Colton the Cruel” – as one paper had blared in a garish headline during the height of his scandal – stood, coffee in hand, seeking sanctuary and, it appeared, my company.

“May I?” he said before flashing an impossibly white smile, the blue of his eyes damn near mesmerizing.

Intrigued by the Why of this What – him choosing me – I nodded. Besides, if I could get him to sit for an interview, actually get him on-record, not only would a second-year journalism student do what dozens of “real” reporters couldn’t, I’d also prove my dismissive, arrogant, idiot professors wrong.

Hell yes, he can sit with me!

Small talk ensued. An interesting dance that flirted with flirtation, edged back to the predictable safety of the weather, classes, school, life before creeping again toward the hopeful light of imagined kisses and secret fantasies, white teeth flashing, his blue-eyed gaze intense and hungry.

Yeah, this guy was good.

“So, you transferred from-”

He waved my question away. “Eh, no biggie.” A shrug, a sip of coffee, his gaze steady and sure. “Wanted something a bit more intimate. More real.” He returned the coffee cup to its place in front of him, his hands resting on the table, his long fingers pausing within reach of mine.

“You’ve heard about me,” he said. His deep voice was low, the words almost a whisper. “None of it’s true.”

I sipped my own coffee, the ice having long ago melted into a watery, sugary disappointing memory of what coulda-shoulda-woulda been. I avoided his eyes knowing there would be the hint of tears. Convenient vulnerability designed to elicit sympathy.

“What isn’t true?” I said. “I’ve heard a lot, some of it good, some of it a bit more unbelievable.” I slurped from my straw. “So, be more specific. What exactly isn’t true?”

He grinned. “The bad stuff?” Propping his elbows on the table, he leaned forward, rounded shoulders and firm biceps bulging through the short sleeves of his designer shirt. “I like you.” The fingers, once more claiming the middle of the small table and edging closer. “I’d like to see you again.” He ducked his chin to his chest, the eyes lifting to catch and hold mine, a small grin on his lips, the glimmer of an Arctic white smile barely, just barely, peeking through. “If that’s okay.”

I almost laughed. And I was tempted, truly tempted, to allow myself the dangerous dream of being with him. Of tasting those lips, feeling those strong arms around me. The weight of him on top of me, his breath on my cheek. Despite the stories and my friends’ inevitable warnings, part of me found itself thinking ‘Why the hell not?’

“You know, I live nearby,” I heard him saying. “Right around the corner.” His fingers finally touched mine.

That’s when I saw it. The cruelty in the blue. The psychotic savagery in the Arctic white. The threat of harm, perhaps death, in the grip of those long fingers and strong arms. The dark malevolence of the casual charm and carnal need.

All those stories, the myth, the uncatchable enigma, it all suddenly carried the weight of truth.

I quietly pulled my fingers from his. He reached, reconnected. Insisted I receive his unwanted gesture. Here in a public cafe, fellow students scattered among neighboring tables, books out, phones in hand. Baristas lingering at the register. Here in public, he forced me to accept his advances knowing he was immune from consequence. Knowing he, even as an infamous son of a disgraced Senator, was still inoculated from the rules that governed everyone else.

Despite all he’d endured, all the consequences, the very real price he and his family had paid, the ruin and disrepute, he couldn’t stop himself.

He was sick.

I stood. Gathered my bag from the floor and slung it over my shoulder. Spotted the nearby garbage can for the watery latte. Fished the small umbrella from the outer pocket of my purse, my eyes avoiding him.

He’d stood, misinterpreting my actions. Was slugging back the last of his coffee.

“I gotta go,” I said, my hand out for his to shake. “Class.”

Ignoring the gesture, he put his hand on the small of my back as he tried to guide me from the table toward the door.

I resisted. Gave a small smile. “No, no, no, I gotta go.”

“I’ll walk you.” The hand pressed, insisting we leave.

I moved away from it. “No, thank you.” My eyes caught his. Stopped. Held his gaze. Showed me to be defiant and strong. Not to be led or cajoled or controlled. “I’m fine.” A pause. “Some other time, perhaps,” I said, both of us knowing it was a lie.

Outside, a sudden storm pelted the sidewalk.

He laughed, the sound feeling small and unsure despite his small smile. “But I don’t have an umbrella.” Moving close, he tried to press against me.

My hand rose to his chest, stopping him mid-step. “Then you’ll get wet,” I said, my lips not smiling, my tone unapologetic and clear. “You’ll survive.”

And I turned and left, the door closing behind me as, umbrella up, I walked, quickly, truly afraid for the next girl he met, and charmed, and destroyed with his steely blue gaze and perfect smile.

But I was afraid. Haunted by the thought that, between here and his place around the corner, there’d be some innocent, unsuspecting girl with an umbrella eager to save this Prince Charming from the rain.

And, alone in the rain, each calm step moving me further from the nightmare that could’ve been, I wept for her.

***

Learn more about Colton Carryage from “Click” in Eidolon Avenue: The First Feast

***

“Jonathan Winn’s writing is solid and assured, and EIDOLON AVENUE: THE FIRST FEAST is a big, sweeping, fantastical and exotic work that is as engrossing and thrilling as it is disturbing and horrifying. Winn is definitely an author to watch.” – Greg F. Gifune, author THE BLEEDING SEASON

“The strength of Winn’s writing is the excellent characterization – the unusual inhabitants of those five apartments are the stories. Put a magnet on a note with Jonathan Winn’s name underlined on the fridge, then watch for his byline. Recommended.” — Gene O’Neill, THE CAL WILD CHRONICLES, THE HITCHHIKING EFFECT, AT THE LAZY K

 

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Interviews with Eidolon – Bullet

He fidgeted.

Fingers drummed the bar. Legs bounced as he sat on the stool. His clean-shaven head turned to glance across the bar to the door, turned back to me only to turn, quickly, a moment later, his dark eyes always on the move as if anticipating the arrival of someone or something.

A handsome man, despite his face being marked with a story’s worth of scars, the dingy white tank top he wore did nothing to hide his tattoos. A kaleidoscope of color and shading and sharp lines beginning at the wrist to spread up his forearm, reach along his muscled bicep, crawl across his strong shoulder to wander, out of sight, down his chest or wrap around his neck to spill down his back.

His name was Bullet. Or so he’d told me earlier when we’d found ourselves pausing at the curb before crossing the street together. “Why Bullet?” I’d said. He laughed. “My dad said I was dumber than shit. Musta been born with a bullet to the brain. So, it stuck, ya know? Bullet.” And we walked and talked, laughed, until our paths parted, me the pretty blonde turning left, he the tattooed bruiser disappearing right.

Two days later, another curb, another crossing, a shared smile at the surprising reunion, both on the same path, both with an afternoon free. So here we sat at a corner dive on Eidolon.

He’d agreed to an interview. A chat, really, the earlier mention of that bullet to the brain-comment from his dad intriguing me. I wanted to understand how a child grows with the weight of that kind of flippant cruelty. And this twenty-something dude with the large-breasted mermaids circling the shipwreck on his arm seemed like the best guy to ask.

But his fingers drummed the bar. His legs bounced. His head turned, again and again, his eyes forever glancing to the window and toward the door. Even the two beers he’d chugged and the microwave pizza he’d inhaled – one of three items on the bar’s excuse for a menu – had done nothing to calm him down. To say he was more than a little preoccupied was an understatement.

“We can always do this some other time if you-”

He turned to the door. “You feel that?”

I didn’t feel anything. The sun sometimes slipped behind a canopy of grey but the afternoon was neither hot nor cold. There was no draft to speak of. “Feel what?” I tried to catch his gaze.

“That…whatever the fuck it is,” he said, turning back to me. “I don’t know, man, but, shit, it’s driving me fuckin’ crazy.”

“I don’t feel anything. We can move, if you-”

“Nah, man, it ain’t like that. It ain’t no fuckin’ breeze or shit. It’s…” He turned back to the door and then back to me, his head ducking as his fingers rubbed his eyes. “I can’t get away from it. It, like, follows me or shit. Fuck.”

From the drumming fingers and bouncing legs to the hunched shoulders and dark circles under his eyes, he seemed stressed. Hounded, even. By what?

“Talk to me,” I said, swiveling my stool to face him.

“Man, it’s fate or something, you know?” He stayed still, his hand shielding his eyes as fingers and thumb massaged opposite temples. “You do bad shit, fucked up shit, you screw the fuck up, you pay. Always. That’s always the way. You pay and you’re done. Finito. Finished. End of story, man.”

“But haven’t we all done bad things-”

“Fuck,” he said, snorting with laughter. “I’m a good guy. I mean, you ignore this-” He gestured toward the tattoos, “And I’m good as fuckin’ gold. Scout’s honor or some shit.”

I grinned. “Or some shit.”

He sighed. “But yeah. Of course there are things I regret. We all do, you know? But there’s one thing, one big thing, I regret. Still. That keeps me the fuck awake at night, you know? Still.” A pause as he squeezed his eyes closed. “Every fucking night.” He shook his head. “Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.”

“Tell me what you feel.” I thought of touching his arm, hoping to comfort, but decided against it. “Even if you don’t know, try. Try and tell me why you keep looking to the door.”

Eyes still closed, fingers and thumbs still on his temples, he spoke.

“I live across the street. Some shit hole. But, fuck me, every time, every goddamn time, I walk into the building or my pad, man, it’s just fucked. Not, like, the way it is. I mean, a shit hole’s a shit hole, right? It ain’t no mansion and I sure as hell ain’t no maid. But what I feel, it’s more…Fuck.” He paused. “It’s like I’m being watched. Like, in the walls or something. It sounds crazy, yeah, but, fuck, maybe I’m crazy. But there’s, like, the sound of…” He looked at me. “Slithering. Like snakes or serpents or something. In the walls. In the ceiling. In the boards. Under the floor. Below me.” He shook his head. “Is that a word? Slithering?”

I nodded. “Yeah, it’s a word.”

“Pretty and smart,” he said with a small grin. “Love it.”

I smiled. “You said it sounded like snakes? In the walls?”

He bolted upright. Turned away. Refused my gaze. “Fuck no, man. No way. Rats, maybe. Not snakes, though. That’s not what I meant. That’s just too fucked. Fucked, man. No way. No fuckin’ way, man.”

“You’re right,” I said quickly, but he was already sliding from the stool, bouncing on the balls of his feet, his hands checking his pockets, brushing the legs of his wrinkled, stained jeans, running over his too-thin torso, his gaze refusing me. In his mind, he had already left. “Definitely rats,” I said. “You should tell the-”

He stopped, his eyes on the window. A moment later, he walked the several steps to stand at the dingy glass. I followed to stand beside him.

“You ever get that feeling that it’s all done. That even though it ain’t obvious and everything seems fine or some shit, that it’s just over?”

“What’s over?”

He turned to me. His eyes looked wet, though I chose to doubt it was the advent of tears. “I dunno.” He sniffled. “Everything?” He shrugged it away. Looked back out the window to his building down the street. “Fuck it, man. Everyone’s gotta pay the piper someday, yeah?”

And he left, barging out of the bar to lope across the street before slipping behind the dented metal door, drawn back to that inescapable shit hole on Eidolon Avenue he called home as the sun ducked behind a canopy of gray.

***

Learn more about Bullet in Eidolon Avenue: The First Feast

***

“Lyrical, poetic, and devastating, Jonathan Winn’s Eidolon Avenue is everything good horror should be.” – Kealan Patrick Burke, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of The Turtle Boy, Kin, and Sour Candy 
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Interviews with Eidolon – Lucky

Although the day was sunny, she’d led me to one of the cafe’s darker corners, the small rectangle of scuffed wood between us holding our tea, a carousel of sugar packets and my elbows.

Hers stayed by her side, her hands, I imagine, folded neatly in her lap.

“Call my Lucky,” she said when I first approached her days ago.

Even though we lived on different streets, I’d seen her in the neighborhood, back straight, head held high, chin up. Her stride perfectly even and smooth. Regal.

Older, Asian and simply dressed, she carried with her a feeling of calm and, I suspected, a lifetime of stories. Not too surprising considering most who found themselves living in this part of town only did so after a lifetime of stumbles, reversals and outright disasters.

This short strip of cracked and crumbling concrete known as Eidolon Avenue was a place where you died or came to hide. There were no futures to be found here.

So I’d approached. Suggested an interview. Nothing big. Really just something to stretch those wannabe-journalist muscles in me, my brain eager to distance itself from homework and move closer to real life people with real life tales to tell.

It’d be one question, I’d explained. A simple one that, on the surface, seemed easy to answer but, once looked at, considered, turned over, pulled apart, became more complicated than it first seemed:

What’s your biggest regret?

Lucky grinned, her thin lips lifting at the corners, the wrinkles around her eyes deepening. Her gaze left mine to scan the narrow room. Drifted toward the two waiters lounging by the register. The ding-ding of the door as a man in a business suit strode in. The other couple who’d claimed their own dark corner, their voices whispers, their heads low as they lingered over coffees, thick porcelain plates picked clean and shoved to the side.

“My biggest regret,” she then said. Her eyes returned to me. I sat up straighter. Wanted to sip my tea but feared seeming impolite. She stared, pondering the question, I suspected. Sifted through the decades of her life to land on that one thing she wished she could change more than anything.

“Yes,” I watched her, hoping I hadn’t started off too bold. That the question wasn’t too nosey or offensive. “The first thing that comes to mind, if that’s okay.”

A nod from her. And then a pause, her hands lifting, fingers laced, to rest on the table. Her knuckles looked arthritic and swollen. Painful. The fingers thin and tapered, the nails clumsily manicured, the skin as pale as delicate paper criss-crossed with a faint map of light blue veins.

As if sensing my stare, the fists darted beneath the table and out of sight to rest again on her lap.

“When I was young-” she said before stopping. Her eyes watched the cup of tea steaming in front of her. The one she’d yet to sip. She shook her head. Her narrow shoulders lifted in a sigh.

“I’m sorry.” I leaned forward, my elbows still propped on the table. “You don’t have to answer if you don’t-”

Her raised hand, palm forward, silenced me.

“When I was young,” she said again, the hand slipping below to reunite with its twin, “I had a choice.” She looked at me. “I chose wrong.”

“What was the choice?” I said, the words spoken before Reason and Manners could stop them.

“I drank the tea.” Another grin. “Everything that followed – the devastation, the heartbreak, the callous cruelty, the evil, the theft of my beloved Samuel – all of that came because of seven sips of tea.”

“Evil,” I said. “You mean, like, ‘evil’ evil, right?”

“This was in Shanghai,” she said, the question ignored. “There was a woman, a very powerful woman. One with shocking, dangerous secrets. A woman of great wealth. I worked for her. Scrubbing floors that didn’t need to be scrubbed.” A long pause, the tea waiting in front of her. “I worked for her and she ended my life.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re young,” she said, giving the room another quick glance. “You’ve yet to see how dark life can get. Of how surprising it can be.” She watched the couple bickering. She pretty and meek, he handsome and brutish, both young, the shadow of their far corner stealing their words. “You’ve yet to see how a ‘yes’ or a nod or simply doing nothing can give birth to events you could never expect and never imagine. You’ve yet to see how horrible people can be.

“Even the tiny old ones who walk quietly and give you small smiles,” she said, smiling as, with a ding-ding, the door opened and the guy in the suit left, to-go coffee in hand.

Although I smiled in response, I felt my skin crawl. Felt my bones grow cold. My flesh grow heavy. In her eyes, just below the surface, I saw a different woman than I’d first assumed. One perhaps chained to her past in ways I couldn’t imagine. I saw the flicker of a dangerous flame. The sense of something deeper. Unimaginable. Of things seen that can’t be unseen. Of consequences and painful regrets. Of anguish and silent screams and pain without end.

“Have you been evil?” I heard myself saying.

“I chose,” she said. “I drank the tea. More sips than needed, I remember. The job done in three, I took seven. Seven quick sips. But in the moment – only a girl, really, hungry, orphaned, alone, my family having thrown me to the streets like a useless dog – in that moment I believed there was no other choice. That my options were few. Even nonexistent.

“In that moment I wanted what Madame had, what she promised. Her power, her wealth, her freedom.”

“If you sipped the tea?”

She nodded.

“And did you succeed?”

“I was powerful, for a time. A long time.” Her voice was quiet. Almost a whisper. “And I was feared. Legendary for my cruelty, not that there should be pride in that.” A small laugh. “And I was wealthy. Even loved, briefly.” She breathed deep. Exhaled slow. “But freedom? Never. My choice was a cage, you see. A lock with no key. A hunger,” she said, her words becoming a rush. “A need, an unstoppable obsession with no end, a thing I needed to do, I had to do, I was forced to do-” She stopped. “Forgive me.”

She nodded, her head ducking chin to chest in the smallest of bows, as she slid from the booth.

“No, please. I’m sorry,” I said, angling from the booth to rise as well. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“In the blink of an eye, they piled up, the bodies, one after another.” She took my hand in hers. “It happens so fast.” Her hand let go of mine. “And for that, there is no redemption, no matter how many times I confess.”

And she turned, leaving the cafe with a ding-ding as the door closed behind her, her cup of tea forgotten on the table, untouched.

***

Learn more about Lucky in Eidolon Avenue: The First Feast

“a great read…powerful and jarring” – Cemetery Dance

Ten Horror Novels That Will Stick with You – Horror Novel Reviews

Eidolon Avenue front cover-WARNING

as the gods ate our sun

In honor of the upcoming “Great American Eclipse” August 21st, I thought I’d offer an excerpt from my book The Wounded King (blurb below) where – surprise surprise –  there’s a total eclipse! And in ancient Uruk one thousand years before Christ, if the sun disappeared during the day, it was never, ever a good thing.

Certainly wasn’t for the Wounded King.

Enjoy.

***

There was no crown.

They surrounded the city, their swords raised, their shields ready.

They kneeled in the streets, young and old, their hands clasped in prayer, the words, the pleas, the begging, the cries, spilling from their lips.

High above, I sat, surrounded by Priests, an orphan.

A King.

And soon the day would grow dark as the Gods ate our sun.

I was told there were stories.

It was said my mother, the Queen, had flown down the countless steps of the Temple that day, her gown in flames.

It was said my mother, the Queen, was herself in flames, her arms, her legs, her head and lovely hair, all on fire as she ran through the streets that day surrounded by screams.

There were even those who said they heard my mother, the Queen, call to the Darkness to save her that day, the words lost in the terror of her torment.

And then it was said she, my mother, the Queen, had stopped in the marketplace, a great torch alight with massive flames, and simply fallen, crumbled to ash before the winds lifted the pile and scattered it to the sky, a delicate cloud of grey carried far from the city and deep into the mountains.

Yes, there were stories.

Those barbarians in the streets also said the Old Woman, the Ancient in the Temple, had called on those Gods older than the Dark Gods. Willed Them with secret words to do her bidding, her power so strong, so deep, that it conjured a Great Thunder which rattled the stones of the city and shook the very ground itself.

And there were those who had lived long and seen much who said she, this Ancient, had shouted prayers not heard since the Time Before the Moon, her power so fearful it made my mother burn. So ancient it called the deadly flames from deep within the poor Queen’s soul.

Then she had grown wings and flown away, this Old Woman, escaping the Elder yet again.

Yes, that’s what they said.

But then there were those who insisted that, no, she had not grown wings. The Old Woman had instead called a great daemon, a lesser Dark God perhaps, who had stood behind her, looking like a man, quite like a man, yes, but who then unfurled his wings, great feathered wings, which rose high to arch above his head, the tips meeting in the air.

It was he, this winged daemon, who had lifted her out of the Elder’s grasp. Who flew her out of the courtyard, away from the Temple, and into the sky.

That’s what was said in the streets of this great city.

None of it mattered.

I was now King.

I was now alone.

And the Gods were going to eat our sun.

They stood near, the Priests, the Elder watching me.

The Army had not supported his desire to rule. They had loved my father, the First King, a warrior like them. They had respected my brother, the Dead King, a man who had fought alongside them in many a battle. With more power than mere Guards, and less likely to do the bidding of the Priests, these true warriors, this Army, would ultimately decide who ruled.

And it was to be me.

The Elder’s victory had been short lived.

A din rose from the streets outside.

The Priests turned to the open walls, a rustle of expensive fabric as they peered below.

Incense choked the air as the prayers grew, the day growing dark. From the walls, swords beat shields and warriors screamed and shouted and cried and bellowed as the light dimmed, the sun in a celestial war with the approaching darkness.

Of course, It was here.

Were I to close my eyes, I could smell It, sense It, feel It, the moist heat now gentle as It stroked my arm.

Beneath the feet of those many men in red and gold, It waited. It moved when they moved, stopped when they stopped. Waited, Its knowledge secure, trusting Its victory was near.

They surrounded me, they did, this prison of red and gold.

I glanced at the wine in my hand.

The skin on my arm grew warm as it blushed. A small red blister appeared, wept, and then disappeared, the tender, round wound sinking into the flesh.

I am here …

It spoke.

I have always been here …

The shrieks, the cries, the prayers, screams and shouts from below swallowed us while swords clanked and warriors bellowed and day turned to night.

The Elder watched me.

I will never leave …

I thought of my father then, his eyes sunken and bleeding. Not even a great warrior like him could win this fight.

And of my brother, a greater warrior still, his tongue thick, his teeth blackened, his eyes sealed shut with dried puss as he sobbed, his hand on mine.

And I thought of my mother at one with the Darkness. Robbed of her health, her sanity, her soul. Haunted by the regret that was her life as she ran, burning.

What could I, an Almost King, a Pretend King, do?

The barbarians below erupted in a full-throated panic as the dark deepened.

I was no warrior.

Those on the wall shouted and threatened, swords raised high.

I could not fight.

The Priests calmly waited.

I put the cup to my lips.

You are mine …

And the whole world screamed as the sun went out.

***

The Wounded King Final - cover

A sacrifice. A dying King. Bones in the stone, blood in the wine. A Queen consumed by the Darkness.

From ancient Uruk, The Almost King tells his tale. Of The Elder and his cunning Priests in their robes of red and gold. Of an Old Woman who can call the power of the Dark Gods. Of his mother, the Queen, and his dying brother, the King.

And of the Darkness, an evil from before the Time of the Moon. Inescapable, its hunger never-ending, its shadow fed by the Priests, slowly overwhelming his family.

Drowning in a sea of red and gold, the Almost King battles an unwinnable war as he navigates the wreckage towards his fate as … The Wounded King.

***

The Wounded King is the first in The Martuk Series, a collection of Short Fiction based on characters from the full-length novel Martuk … The Holy.