Paperback
-
PICK UP IN STORECheck Availability at Nearby Stores
Available within 2 business hours
Related collections and offers
Overview
Jayce’s twenty-year-old daughter Emory is missing, lost in a dark, dangerous realm called Shadow that exists alongside our own reality. An enigmatic woman named Nicola guides Jayce through this bizarre world, and together they search for Emory, facing deadly dog-eaters, crazed killers, homicidal sex toys, and – worst of all – a monstrous being known as the Harvest Man. But no matter what Shadow throws at him, Jayce won’t stop. He’ll do whatever it takes to find his daughter, even if it means becoming a worse monster than the things that are trying to stop him.
FLAME TREE PRESS is the new fiction imprint of Flame Tree Publishing. Launching in 2018 the list brings together brilliant new authors and the more established; the award winners, and exciting, original voices.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781787580114 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Flame Tree Publishing |
| Publication date: | 09/06/2018 |
| Series: | Fiction Without Frontiers |
| Pages: | 240 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.40(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
"Have you seen this woman?"
Jayce Lewis held out a flier with a color photo of Emory on it, one of a stack that he carried under his arm. Then, realizing how clichéd and impersonal the question sounded, he added, "She's my daughter, and she used to work here. She's ... missing."
He hated using the word missing. As if she'd merely been misplaced. But it was better than abducted, and infinitely better than dead.
The man behind the CrazyQwik convenience store counter was in his early forties, Jayce guessed. About a decade younger than he was. His hair was slate-gray and he wore it pulled back in a ponytail. He was clean-shaven, without a hint of stubble, despite the lateness of the hour. He was thin – unhealthily so – and his skin had a sickly cast. The man, Virgil according to his nametag, didn't take the flier from Jayce. Instead he leaned over the counter to get a closer look at it. He gave off a strange scent, an acrid-sweet odor, like rotting flowers, and Jayce wondered if the guy was ill. He smelled like he was being eaten away from the inside. Jayce tried to keep the disgust he felt from showing on his face as he drew his head back and turned it slightly to the side to avoid the worst of the smell. It didn't help, though. The odor was too strong.
Virgil stared at Emory's photo for several moments, not blinking the entire time, as if he was focusing all his concentration on it, absorbing every detail and committing it to memory.
"The picture's a couple years old," Jayce said. It was, in fact, Emory's senior high school picture, and it had been taken about two years ago. It was the most recent photo of her that he had. In it, she wore a white blouse and posed with one arm across a blue velvet platform, chin resting lightly on her other hand. Her brown hair was long and straight, and she wore minimal makeup that highlighted her features without being obvious about it. Her mouth was quirked up at one side in a half smile, and there was a mischievous glint in her eyes that said, I know something you don't. She was beautiful, and this picture made her look even more so. Jayce wished he had a more ordinary, plain photo of her, though. He had the feeling that Virgil was staring so intently at her picture because of how she looked, not because the man gave a rat's ass about helping him find her.
This was the first time Jayce had been in CrazyQwik. He'd never seen one before, so he assumed it was a local store and not part of a chain. The store stocked the usual types of products – snacks, drinks, cigarettes, magazines, and the like – but there were odd differences, too. There was a small section for what looked like taxidermy supplies labeled Necromantia, and a section called Ferricles that displayed twisted pieces of rust-covered scrap metal. What anyone would want with those, Jayce had no idea. The coolers in the rear of the store contained another oddity. Inside were clay jars, lids sealed with wax, none of them the exact same size and shape. There were markings carved onto their surfaces, symbols that made no sense to Jayce, and he figured they must indicate the jars' contents. Jayce wasn't the only customer in CrazyQwik that evening. A woman stood in front of the cooler, a contemplative look on her face, as if she was trying to decide which jar to select. She made no move to open the cooler door, though. Instead, she took a step back, as if to get a broader perspective on the problem.
Jayce guessed her to be in her mid-to-late thirties, although it was difficult to tell her age from the way she was dressed. She wore all black – a long-sleeved blouse, glasses, skirt, leggings, and knee high boots with thick rubber soles. She wore larger silver hoop earrings that had gossamer-thin filaments inside that shimmered in the light and made him think of dew-covered spider silk. It was a strange effect, but beautiful. The woman was short, five feet tall, maybe an inch or two shorter. Her long black hair was thick and full of body, and it looked slightly mussed, like she'd just gotten out of bed. She wasn't typically pretty, but she was striking. Her features were sharp, and she exuded a relaxed confidence that Jayce found attractive and more than a little intimidating.
Virgil finished examining Emory's picture, and he leaned back and looked at Jayce.
"Don't know her. Sorry."
"Like I said, it's an older picture of her. She worked here for a while, though." He didn't say how long because he didn't know. There was a lot he didn't know about Emory. Too much.
Virgil shrugged again.
That shrug was starting to piss Jayce off. But he kept his irritation from showing on his face or in his voice. Suppressing his emotions came easily to him. Too easily, according to his ex-wife.
"Who schedules the employees? Is there a manager I can talk to?"
"We don't have managers per se," Virgil said. "We don't really have schedules, either."
Jayce frowned. "How does that work?"
He gave another goddamned shrug. "It's hard to explain. Basically, you show up when you want to, work for as long as you want, and then leave."
Jayce wondered if the man was putting him on.
"How do you get paid?"
"We take money out of the register before we go. Only five percent, though. You can't take any more. If you do...." Another shrug.
Jayce was pissed now, but still fought to keep from showing it.
"Look, I don't mind you messing with me, as long as you tell me the truth about my daughter. So I'll ask one more time, and please – no joking. Do you know her?"
Before Virgil could respond, a woman's hand reached out and took the flier from Jayce. The woman in black held a clay jar in her left hand, and the flier in her right as she examined Emory's picture. There were words on the flier, too, of course. Details about Emory – age, height, weight, the date she went missing, where she was last seen, a contact number for Jayce and a promise of a reward for information leading to finding her: $5,000. Not much, Jayce supposed, but it was all he had in savings.
"She's lovely." The woman gazed at Emory's face a moment before handing the flier back to Jayce. "I'm sorry."
He took it from her, unsure what to say. Now that they were face to face, he could see she had bright, almost piercing green eyes, and having them trained on him was exciting and intimidating in equal measure. Like Virgil, she had an odd scent, but unlike his, hers wasn't unpleasant. She had a faint woody odor, kind of like acorns. A strange choice for a perfume, he thought, but he kind of liked it. It reminded him of being in the woods.
"Have you seen her?" he managed to get out. "She's been missing for two weeks. Eighteen days, actually. I guess that's almost three weeks, isn't it?" Time flew when your daughter vanished off the face of the Earth.
The woman didn't take the flier from him to give it a second look. She kept her green-eyed gaze fixed on him as she answered.
"No, I haven't."
Jayce nodded for lack of any other response. Then he returned his attention to Virgil.
"Can I leave a flier here for you to put up in the window?" He held the flier out, and after a moment's hesitation, Virgil took it.
"I'll tape it to the counter," he said. "Stuff doesn't last long in the window, a half hour tops, and it's gone. Just kind of ... decays, you know?"
Jayce didn't know if the man was making another joke or if he was a few letters short of an alphabet. Maybe both, he decided. But he didn't want the guy to crumple the flier and toss it in the trash after he left, so he smiled and thanked him. He gave the woman a parting smile as well, then turned and headed for the door.
Behind him he heard a soft thump as the woman put her jar on the counter, and then heard voices as she and Virgil began speaking to one another. Were they talking about him? Why else would they be talking so softly? He told himself he was being paranoid, but he couldn't shake the feeling that they were discussing him – or perhaps Emory.
He tried to put his suspicions out of his mind and focus on the positive. If Virgil made good on his promise to display the flier, there was an excellent chance one or more of the CrazyQwik's customers would recognize Emory, and maybe – just maybe – someone might have some information about what had happened to her and where she was.
Jayce wasn't surprised the store – and its employee – was weird. The Cannery was a mix of fast-food joints, hole-in-the-wall restaurants, seedy bars, funky small businesses, and more than a few abandoned and boarded-up buildings. It wasn't exactly the safest place in Oakmont, and he wouldn't have ventured into it if it hadn't been for Emory.
He opened the door, setting off a two-note electronic tone – bee-baw – and stepped out into the night. It was the first week of March, and a light rain fell. It had snowed last week, and several inches remained on the ground. The roads and sidewalks had long since been cleared, though, and Jayce hoped winter was finally on its way out. It had been a hard one, with heavier-than-average snowfall and frigid temperatures, and he wouldn't be sorry to see it go. And if Emory were out on the streets somewhere, living homeless, at least she wouldn't have to deal with extreme cold. Then again, if she was on the streets of the Cannery, he supposed the weather would be among the least of her worries.
He wore a leather jacket with a removable lining to provide extra protection from the cold. He had gloves, but he'd left them in his pocket. He didn't have a hat, hated wearing the damn things. They always mussed his hair and filled it with static. He unzipped his jacket halfway and tucked the fliers inside to protect them from the rain. He held them close to his body and then zipped up the jacket. He'd started at CrazyQwik because Emory had worked there, but he had a lot of fliers, and he was determined to pass them all out before he went home. This evening, frustrated by the police's lack of interest in Emory's case – Young girls take off all the time without telling their families. She'll get in touch when she's ready – he'd decided to begin searching on his own. He'd gone home after work and started making a missing-person flier on his laptop. It took him a while to get to the point where he was satisfied with it, though. He was an insurance agent, not a graphic designer, but he thought the final result wasn't half bad. When it was finished, he printed fifty copies and then, after reconsidering, printed fifty more. CrazyQwik had been his first stop, and he was disappointed in how it had turned out. He knew it was foolish, but he'd hoped that he'd learn something important there. Maybe even discover that Emory wasn't really missing after all.
Emory? Yeah, she hasn't been in here for a while. She moved in with a new boyfriend. Bobby Something. He works at the Harley-Davidson store on the other side of town.
So now that CrazyQwik had turned out to be a bust, he wasn't certain where to try next. He knew so little of the life his daughter had made for herself since graduating high school, and he had no idea where to continue looking for her. Whatever he did next, he didn't want to keep standing out here in the rain, even as light as it was. He decided he'd try the businesses on either side of CrazyQwik, a tattoo shop called Stained and a secondhand store called Dregs. He decided on Dregs first. Emory couldn't have made much money working at CrazyQwik, and there was a good chance she shopped for clothes at Dregs. He turned right and headed for the store.
Traffic cruised by in both directions, not heavy but steady. The sidewalks weren't crowded, probably due to the rain, but then again, it was a Tuesday night. Things probably picked up around here on the weekends. The buildings were old in the Cannery and set close together, and the street was narrow. There were streetlamps, old-fashioned things that put out weak yellow light that did little to illuminate the neighborhood. Shadows were everywhere, clinging to buildings like a black coating, pooling on the sidewalks and in the gutters like dark water, filling the alleys like something solid.
He heard his mother's voice then, whispering a warning.
Be careful. The world's a dangerous place.
How many times had he heard her say that while he was growing up? Thousands, he supposed. But that didn't make her wrong.
As he passed in front of the alley between CrazyQwik and Dregs, he heard movement. Scuffling, skittering, a growl, a chunk, then a brief sharp whine. He knew better than to stop, knew he should keep going to Dregs, or maybe head straight to his car, go home, and come back tomorrow when it was light out. But he did stop, for reasons that weren't entirely clear to him, and he turned to face the darkness that filled the alley. He heard new sounds now – wet tearing noises followed by moans of satisfaction. He felt a warning prickle on the back of his neck, accompanied by a surge of cold panic in his chest. He needed to get out of here. Now.
"What the fuck are you looking at?"
A man's voice, followed by shuffling footsteps.
"You some kind of pervert?"
The second voice was female, and she sounded even angrier than her companion.
You could run.
His mother's voice, sounding far calmer than he felt.
He was fifty-one years old, and he spent most of his time sitting behind a desk. He was twenty pounds overweight – at least – and the most exercise he got was walking to and from his car. Even with the help of adrenaline, he doubted he'd make it an entire block without having to stop and gulp for air. Besides, if he ran, he might drop the fliers, and he couldn't bear the thought of them being scattered on the sidewalk to be rained on and stepped on. So he stood his ground as a pair of figures emerged from the alley. They were younger than he expected, in their teens, and both wore jackets, jeans, and sneakers. The girl was brunette, her hair buzzed short in a military-style cut. The boy's hair was black and it was cut in the same style. But their similar hairstyles didn't make much of an impression on Jayce. He was too busy staring at the dark smears around their mouths and the dark splotches on their clothes. But far more disturbing were the large hunting knives the teens carried. The blades were slick with the same dark substance that smeared their lips, and thick drops fell from the metal and hit the ground with audible plaps.
It's blood, he thought. He'd never seen blood in dim light before, and he was surprised by how black it looked.
The teens rushed toward him, and the boy reached forward, grabbed hold of Jayce's jacket collar with his free hand, and pulled him into the alley with surprising strength. He shoved Jayce against the alley wall and pressed the point of his knife to the fleshy underside of Jayce's chin. The back of Jayce's head smacked against brick when the kid shoved him, and bright pain flared behind his eyes.
"I asked what you were looking at," the boy said.
They were still close enough to the alley's mouth for the streetlamp's feeble light to penetrate, and Jayce saw that the boy's teeth came to sharp little points. The girl hung back, but she smiled, revealing equally sharp teeth. The newly shaved heads, the filed teeth ... were these two in some kind of bizarre gang? If so, it was one Jayce had never heard of.
Jayce's head throbbed, and he felt dizzy and nauseated. He forced himself to stay calm, though – or at least as calm as possible – as he spoke.
"Have. ... Have either of you seen my daughter?"
The boy frowned and then he turned to the girl and they exchanged confused looks.
"She's missing," Jayce continued. "I have fliers in my jacket. I'll show you one if you'll...."
The boy returned his attention to Jayce, looked at him for a moment, and then nodded. He took the knife away from Jayce's throat and stepped back, but he didn't lower his blade. Moving slowly, Jayce unzipped his jacket and removed the fliers. They'd gotten a bit crumpled when the boy had shoved him against the wall, but they were still usable. He held the entire stack out for the teens to look at. The girl came forward then and the two of them leaned their heads forward slightly and squinted, and he had the impression that they could make out Emory's picture fine despite the poor light in the alley. A strong odor like wet dog came from the teens, and since Jayce was already nauseated from the head blow, the stink brought him close to vomiting.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "The Mouth of the Dark"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Tim Waggoner.
Excerpted by permission of Flame Tree Publishing Ltd.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Interviews
What is the book about?
Jayce Lewis’ adult daughter Emory has gone missing, and since the police aren’t making any progress in finding her, he decides to search for her himself. He discovers that Emory has become caught up in a sinister world known as Shadow, and if he’s to have any hope of getting her out, he’ll have to become a worse monster than those already lurking in the dark.
What are the underlying themes?
At its core, The Mouth of the Dark is the story of a parent discovering that he doesn’t really know his daughter, and in fact, doesn’t really know who he is, either. It’s about identity and how our changing perceptions of each other affect our relationships, and what lengths we’ll go to in order to save those we love – with lots of monsters, blood, and death!
What drives you to write horror?
I’ve always been fascinated by the darker side of existence. For some reason, it sparks my imagination more than anything else. We all have a dark side that whispers to us, a side that we struggle against and ultimately need to make peace with one way or another if we don’t want it to destroy us. In many ways, that’s probably the most primal story of humanity. Darker stories allow for greater conflict and deeper, more intense emotional reactions from characters.
What do you think makes good horror?
Give readers characters they care about. Horror stories aren’t about the monster. They’re about how people react to the monster. (Or in some cases, react to becoming monsters.) If readers care about your characters, if they empathize with them, then the threats these characters face will be meaningful to readers. If your characters are the equivalent of video game avatars with no personality, the threats they face will be meaningless to readers.
Also, avoid clichés. Horror is about the unknown, and once a specific type of character, threat, or story structure becomes too familiar, it loses its power to engage and affect readers – especially in horror. It’s important to me that I not only write a good story, but one that pushes me as a writer and (hopefully) stretches readers’ view of what horror is and what it can do.
Where do you get your ideas?
I get a lot of my ideas from interacting imaginatively with the world around me. I’ve always had a strong imagination, and I spend most of my time living in my head. I only seem to be present in the physical world! So if I see something that strikes me as odd, it sparks ideas. For example, a couple days ago, I found a large wooden stake in my yard. I know the stake was left by people doing construction on the street, but my imagination immediately thought: This was left by a vampire hunter during the night. This is how I think all the time, so whatever I’m doing – taking a walk, reading a news article, watching a TV show – I’m constantly responding to whatever stimuli are around me. I also get ideas from misperceptions. A word I misheard, or something I saw out of the corner of my eye that I mistook for something else. Once when I was driving home, I saw a woman in her front lawn. As I passed, I caught a glimpse of her face, and it looked as if she had the skull of some prehistoric beast for a head, with long, curved upper and lower fangs. I have to record these kind of details because I experience so many of them throughout the day that I’ll forget them if I don’t write them down. They don’t all become inspiration for stories, but a lot do!
Where do you write?
Sometimes I write at home, but often I go out to a coffee shop. I like listening to the white noise of the crowd’s conversation, and I find that writing in the midst of life happening around me – people coming and going, chatting, working – is inspiring. There’s often a mix of busyness and calm energy in those places, and I find it both invigorating and soothing at the same time, and this combination seems to help me get into a creative mindspace in a way other environments can’t.
Did you write in silence, or to any particular music?
I can’t write to music that has lyrics. The words of the song interfere with the words I’m trying to produce. If I listen to music when I write, I listen to classical or jazz. Sometimes I’ll listen to music that fits the mood of a scene I’m working on. When I write a particularly dark scene I’ll listen to music from Twin Peaks or to dark ambient music, such as Lustmord’s albums. Sometimes I write in silence. It all depends on what sort of atmosphere gets the words flowing and keeps them flowing.
What’s the best thing about being a writer?
Getting to live inside my head most of the time. I’d do that anyway, but writing makes it possible for me to take what’s in my head, give it concrete form, and share it with others – and that makes living inside your head seem at least somewhat socially acceptable! I also love dealing with narrative challenges and problems with each new story or novel. The overall process of writing – from initial idea to finished product – is an endless source of fascination for me. I’m sure that’s why I also love teaching creative writing.
What’s the worst thing about being a writer?
Always feeling like what you write isn’t good enough because it can never measure up to the ideal in your mind. We always fall short of our goals when we write. The question is how short. Rejection is hard, as are bad reviews, or worse – indifference when you write something and it sinks from view without seeming to make even the slightest impact on readers. The business aspect of writing can be demoralizing at best and soul-crushing at worst, but you have to try not to let it get to you.
Is there any advice you can give someone starting to write?
One of the most common pieces of advice new writers hear is “Write what you know.” But if you take it too literally, all you’ll do is write personal essays, not fiction. Better advice would be to write what fascinates you, what scares you, what infuriates you, what mystifies you . . . Write the kind of book you’d love to read, only it doesn’t exist yet. Write the book only you can write, one that grows out of your imagination and obsessions, not anyone else’s – and don’t let rejection get you down. Keep writing!