Messenger, p.1
Messenger, page 1
MESSENGER
By Edward Lee
A Macabre Ink Production
Macabre Ink is an imprint of Crossroad Press
Digital Edition published by Crossroad Press
Smashwords edition published at Smashwords by Crossroad Press
Crossroad Press digital edition 2022
Copyright © 2004 Edward Lee
Previous publication by Necro Publications—2013
LICENSE NOTES
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Meet the Author
Lee is the author of over 50 horror, fantasy, and sci-fi novels, and dozens of short stories. He has also had comic scripts published by DC Comics, Verotik Inc., and Cemetery Dance. Many of his novels have been reprinted in Germany, Poland, Japan, Italy, Romania, Greece, Russia, Spain and other countries. He is a Bram Stoker Award Nominee; his Lovecraftian novel INNSWICH HORROR won the 2010 Vincent Price Award for Best Foreign Book (Austria), his novel WHITE TRASH GOTHIC won the 2018 Splatterpunk Award for Best Extreme Horror Novel, and his collaborative novella HEADER 3 (with Ryan Harding) won for Best Extreme Novella. In 2020 Lee won the J.F. Gonzales Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2009, the movie version of his novella HEADER was released by Synapse Films; several of his novels are currently under option. Lee is a U.S. Army veteran and lives in Seminole, Florida.
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Table of Contents
* * *
INTRODUCTION
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
EPILOGUE
INTRODUCTION
* * *
I like my horror fiction the way some people like whiskey: straight up. No ice, no seltzer, no fussy mixed drinks. I want that burn down the throat to the belly, the maximum effect. The fiction, like the booze, should provide a maximum potency without pretenses and without dilution. That’s what I like to read and that’s what I like to write, and such is the reason why I’m absolutely thrilled to be writing horror novels for Leisure Books. They let me write horror my way.
Gore, mayhem, sex, and erotica are all essential trimmings for the kind of book I write. I’m not one of these guys trying to turn horror fiction into a literary event. I’m not trying to produce the genre’s equivalent to Gone with the Wind. Instead, I’m trying to deliver hard-edged, breakneck horror that’s IN YOUR FACE and stays there until the last page. No tiptoeing through the tulips. No quiet armchair ghost stories. Horror fiction should be fun in its own macabre ways—grand gross-out entertainment—and I hope that my books deliver these goods. Because, after all, there is something indescribably fun about examining the extremities of our fears in an unreal terrain. If the “fun” becomes too much for us—too upsetting or too dark—we can close the books whenever we want. But horror readers don’t usually do that, do they? It’s the examination of that fear that’s the fun. Bring it on, I say.
Have you ever wanted to be someone else? More than likely. I suppose such conversions are part of any human fantasy, however nebulous, however unrealistic. Now, suppose demons entertain the same fantasy…
Hence the premise of my latest horror novel, MESSENGER. It’s not about simple demonic possession by any means. I think it goes well beyond that formula. Every town has an underbelly, and every person has his or her own secrets. In my book, a very nasty occult entity prowls that underbelly and manipulates those personal secrets to do its bidding. I’ve always been interested in the converse, in reversed poles and things antithetical. In counterparts. Here’s the white, so let’s have a look at the black. Here’s Heaven, so now let’s see Hell. I remember one day several years ago, I was revisiting Maryland, where I’d grown up. I got lost in an old, unfamiliar neighborhood that kind of reminded me of those old Roger Corman horror movies from the ’60s that borrowed so heavily from H.P. Lovecraft. Lots of old ivy-covered rowhouses which seemed to stand at different angles, lots of dark, brooding streets and sprawling trees. Every so often a face would peer at me from a dark window, then disappear. I felt just like an “outsider” from one of these old movies. Eventually I passed a gray, slat-boarded church and beyond, I noticed a funeral taking place: black-garbed figures standing motionless around a casket about to be lowered into the ground. One figure stood well away from the congregation, as if watching in secret. And before I pulled off, something seemed to drag my eyes skyward, to the church steeple where I saw the Archangel Gabriel wielding his eternal trumpet.
Gabriel, the Messenger of God. Without my conscious knowledge at the time, this image would provide the impetus for my novel MESSENGER. But it’s not about Gabriel, it’s about Gabriel’s counterpart. For, surely, if God has a messenger, so does Lucifer, and herein lies the meat of this story. The town in this book could be any town—your town, even. And the Devil’s messenger has arrived. He’s ready to rock.
This book’s got a lot in it: satanic serial killers, secret debaucheries, innocence corrupted. A town turned inside-out by its own lust, indulgence, and hatred. I hope that MESSENGER entertains you in the way that a horror novel should and gives you a little extra kick along the way, by unfolding a cold, hard look into Hell and at the things there that yearn to get out.
The messenger wants to become you, and who knows? Maybe you’re a little curious about what it might be like to become him.
Edward Lee
St. Pete Beach, Florida
PROLOGUE
* * *
Death was in the package. Of course, it would’ve been impossible for Dodd to know that, unless, for instance, he’d been psychic—which he wasn’t—but either way it scarcely mattered. He never would’ve been able to guess. Why would he? It was a simple fact that he would discover soon enough: that the odd box he’d just picked up off the belt contained his death.
Dodd sorted packages. That was his job. He was a package handler. It wasn’t a bad job, as far as jobs went. Great benefits, good pay and retirement, paid vacation, plenty of available overtime when he needed some extra money, and the location, of course. When he picked up the package in question, there wasn’t a whole lot on his mind. By now, he’d become so ingrained in his tasks, most of his mind switched off; he became an automaton, sorting all these packages. Day in, day out, in this same place. The same scenery, the same noises, the same tasks. He paused by the belt, locked in the reality, and thought: I’ve still got nine more years of this before I can retire. That truth often overwhelmed him, even though, for the most part, he didn’t mind his job. He didn’t want to try to guess how many packages he’d picked up and moved in his career. Enough to circle the Earth? Enough to reach the moon? Abstractions were of little value on the line. It was easier to just throw the packages into the proper zone bin and move on to the next one.
Day in, day out.
Sometimes his mind would stray, though, usually to some image that involved sex. Dodd was married to a loving and rather drab wife. She was not attractive, nor unattractive, just…drab, as drab as Dodd’s package-handling life. On the rare occasions when his mind strayed, he never thought of her. He’d think fleetingly, freeze frames of local women he’d see on the street; this close to a beach town, there was much to fill his mind with when he got bored or anxious. Yesterday, for example, he’d stopped by the drug store for cigarettes and saw a beautiful woman—thirty, perhaps—buying a beach towel and a tube of suntan lotion. Dodd got tunnel vision standing behind her in line. Her hair shined, chocolate-brown, shoulder-length, fragrant. She was wearing white shorts and a stunning tear-rose-pink bikini top. The t op was a bit small on her; it buoyed her breasts like blushing satchels. Her skin wasn’t tan at all, though; like Dodd, perhaps she had a job that kept her out of the sun. But her beauty seemed very focused, very compact. To see her standing there, voluptuous yet nonchalant, felt like impact to Dodd. The vision was a lovely punch in the eye.
Did she sense him looking at her?
She turned and smiled at him.
More impact.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hi,” Dodd replied, nearly faltering. “Hitting the beach, I see.”
“Yeah.” She sheepishly held up the towel. “Can you believe it? I’ve lived here almost a year now, and I don’t even own a beach towel, haven’t even been out to the beach. Well, today I fix that. I’m pale as a ghost.”
“I don’t get out much, either,” Dodd replied of his own pale skin.
“A postman?” she said, noticing his work uniform. “All that walking around, delivering mail?”
“I’m not a carrier. I work inside.” I’m a package handler…and you are one package I’d like to handle…
“Oh, that’s too bad.”
“Not really. I get to stay inside in the air-conditioning while everyone else gets the heat.”
“Good old Florida.” She was turning the tube of potion around in her fingers. “But that’s one thing that doesn’t bother me. I love the heat. I love it when it’s hot.”
She smiled at him again, very discreetly.
“Me, too,” Dodd replied.
The tunnel vision sharpened up. She was radiant in curves, long legs, and fresh white skin that gleamed. He imagined what her nipples were like—large and dark, the kind that pucker a little, he decided. He imagined kissing her. He imagined being pressed right up against her, both of them naked, sharing each other’s body heat, arms entwined. Her hands ranging his body…
“Would you like to go?”
The impact of the vision fractured. He blinked. “Go?” he muttered.
“To the beach, with me,” she said, still smiling. “We could go to one of those beach bars by the hotels. I’ve never been.”
“I…” His hand tightened around his wallet. “I’d really like to, but…”
Then she saw his wedding band; however, the smile didn’t abate. “Oh, I see. Don’t feel that bad about it.” She held up her hand. “I’ve got one of those, too.”
Dodd’s breath shortened. Go, he thought. Just go… But he said, “I…I’m sorry. I wish I could, but I can’t.”
Her lashes batted. “I understand. You’re a good man.”
He couldn’t stop looking at her as she paid for her towel and lotion. I could be putting that lotion on her, he reminded himself. A cruel trust. Her buttocks in the tight white shorts couldn’t have been more perfect. He wanted to spread the lotion over that, too, and everywhere else. They could go to the nude beach out past the campgrounds. He’d spread the lotion all down her legs, up her back, then turn her around. All up her perfect stomach and breasts, up the insides of her thighs.
Everywhere.
“’Bye,” she said. A final smile, which seemed sad now, as sad as Dodd’s life.
“’Bye. Have fun.”
She walked out, calves flexing as her flipflops snapped.
God…
The vision was gone. Dodd was back at the post office, sorting his interminable packages.
That’s when he picked up the package that would be his death.
He hit the stop button on the conveyor. He didn’t know why. He didn’t think, Why did I do that? or I’m going to stop the belt. He just did it. He stood there. He looked at the package.
It was an oddly shaped box, oblong. It was wrapped in plain brown paper, like the paper grocery bags are made of. There was no return address, and the postmark appeared smeared; Dodd couldn’t make out the city, state, or zip code it had been mailed from. He looked at the top again. The box read:
DANELLETON POST OFFICE
DANELLETON, FLORIDA
It had been written by hand in red felt tip, erratic scrawl.
The box contained his death. Due to its nature—no return address, shoddily wrapped—a package like this was an instant red flag to the original handler. But it wasn’t a bomb. It contained no anthrax, no poison gas nor germ warfare agents. It had already been X-rayed and bomb-scanned at the Central Distribution Depot in Orlando. Even in this day, before the Unabomber and before the anthrax scare of 2002, a package this suspicious would be vigorously scrutinized. This one had been and it was cleared. Nevertheless, it still contained his death. But it wasn’t anything from a terrorist or psychopath.
Since the box wasn’t addressed to a resident or business, Dodd’s next job was to deliver the package to the branch manager, who wouldn’t be in until later. Instead, Dodd did something that he was clearly not authorized to do.
He opened the package.
More crinkling as he peeled the paper off. Did the box feel hot? No, that was ridiculous. He opened it slowly, not in fear or hesitance but in some indecipherable adoration. His eyes were wide and off-focus. He wasn’t really even looking at the box, he was adoring it in his hands.
As he did so, part of his mind drifted. He thought of the woman who’d invited him to the beach. He did not muse of kissing her now, he mused of killing her. Of holding her down to the floor by her throat and cutting off that tea-rose-pink top and the white shorts. No, he didn’t want to make love to her anymore, he just wanted to slit open her belly and haul out her guts while her legs kicked and her body bucked. That’s what Dodd wanted to do that fussy big-tit bitch with the shiny chocolate-brown hair and white shorts. He wanted to turn those shorts red. He wanted to scalp that shiny brown hair right off her head.
Dodd opened the box and looked inside.
Jimmy O’Brady was fourteen years old and he’d lived in Danelleton for all fourteen. He delivered papers in the morning and mowed lawns most days after school—an industrious kid. Better yet, school was out for the summer, so he could work even more. Florida sunlight bathed the long street—the street he lived on—and right now he was briskly pedaling his bike to the next block, where another lawn waited to be mowed. Money was what made the world go round; Jimmy knew that even at this age. He couldn’t wait till he turned sixteen and got his work permit. Then he could get a job as a bus boy at one of the beach restaurants, really haul in some cash. Another thing he couldn’t wait for was adulthood. Jimmy already knew what he wanted to be when he grew up. He wanted to work for the post office.
And there was the mailman now. Mr. Dexter was cool; he delivered the mail on this street every day, and he’d always stop and talk to Jimmy. He’d tell Jimmy all about working for the post office.
Mr. Dexter was walking away from the front door of the next house. That’s when Jimmy smiled, stopped his bike, and waved. “Hi, Mr. Dexter!”
The postman turned at the sidewalk, smiled back, and began to walk toward Jimmy.
That’s when Jimmy noticed that it wasn’t Mr. Dexter.
Dodd approached the kid on the bike. No, no, not in broad daylight, he was wise enough to decide. Kids needed adults to look up to, they needed role models—just like President Reagan said. Dodd almost laughed out loud. Yeah, I guess if I cut the kid’s head off, he wouldn’t have ANYTHING to look up to!
“Hi there, Jimmy. How are you today?”
“Fine, sir.” The tow-headed kid gave Dodd a scrunched-up look. “How did you know my name?”
“I’m the mailman. You’re Jimmy O’Brady, and you live at 12404 Gatesman Lane.” Dodd pointed to the house at the corner. “Right there. See, when you’re the mailman, you know everybody’s name.”
The kid was squinting against the sun. “But you’re not the regular mailman. Mr. Dexter is our regular mailman. Do you know him?”
“I sure do, Jimmy. I’m filling in for him because he’s sick today.” You ain’t kidding he’s sick. I strangled the fat son of a bitch with the strap on his mail pouch and put his body in the dumpster before the first shift came on. “I usually don’t deliver the mail myself, haven’t in years. I’m a package handler. But it’s fun to take a walking shift every now and then. I just delivered mail to your house.”
