“A voice both uniquely entertaining and profoundly disturbing.”
Brian Keene, Author of Ghoul

DEMON EYES

L. H. MAYNARD & M. P. N. SIMS

Authors of Shelter

“Maynard & Sims succeed in terrifying where some other more graphic authors fail.”
Masters of Terror

 Emma had just started her new job as personal assistant to Alex Keltner, the charismatic and powerful head of Keltner Industries.  So when he asked her to attend a party he was throwing that weekend at his secluded estate, she knew better than to refuse.  It would be her first party amid the extremely wealthy and powerful elite.

“Maynard & Sims know what makes a horror story tick.”
Shivers

 It will be a party she will never forget - if she survives.  At first it will be simply odd.  Mysterious warnings.  Strange, seductive guests.  An atmosphere of seduction and sexuality.  Video cameras in the rooms.   But as the weekend progresses, Emma will slowly learn the true nature of the guests and her mysterious host and the real, grotesque purpose of the party.

“Maynard & Sims write their horror with a delicate fluency and a rare subtlety.”
Jeff Gardiner for The British Fantasy Society

“Maynard & Sims revitalize the traditional thrills.”
Cemetery Dance

 $7.99 US
$9.99 CAN
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$14.95 AUS

www.dorchesterpub.com

 Chapter 1

 Nathan Wisecroft woke suddenly from a dream-filled sleep and stifled the scream that for the last five minutes had been working its way stealthily towards his lips. He took a moment to get his bearings, his eyes drinking in the details of the hotel room; the expensive furniture, the water-color pictures decorating the walls, the state of the art digital television that squatted in the corner of the room, shiny and new, waiting to trap the unwary and tempt them into spending their money on exclusive films, world-class sport and soft porn. His eyes finally settled on the woman in the bed next to him. She was still asleep; breathing deeply, snoring softly, her flame-red hair spread across the pillow and over her shoulders. He sighed deeply, disappointed with himself as usual.

       The room smelled of stale cigarette smoke and sex. The floor was littered with empty beer bottles and clothes, stripped off in haste and left to lie where they fell. He slid his rangy body from the bed, went across to the window and pushed it open, breathing in the biting morning air and letting the sounds of traffic from the road below seep into the room. Slipping on his robe he walked softly through to the en suite, his reflection in the bathroom mirror confirming how he was feeling. He looked terrible; gaunt, almost skeletal features, capped with a covering of short, curly grey hair. The ebony skin seemed stretched across the bones of his skull and his eyes had sunken into their sockets. They remained bloodshot no matter how much sleep he got or how many times he bathed them. Stubble covered his chin, graying like the hair of his head. He looked like a very old man; despite the fact that he had yet to see his fiftieth birthday. ‘You’ve let yourself go, man,’ he muttered to his reflection, even though he knew the truth went deeper than that and was far more serious, far more deadly.

       He closed the bathroom door and pulled open a drawer of the vanity unit. His fingers closed around the clippers. He plugged them in, then stood in front of the mirror again and ran them over his head, watching the hair fall and gather in a silver pile in the sink. When he’d finished shaving his head he turned his attention to his face, letting the teeth of the clippers chew through the stubble. Finally he set the clippers down and picked up a cup of shaving soap and a badger-hair brush. He worked the soap into a creamy lather with the brush then smoothed it over his chin and head. With a straight razor he took off the remaining bristles, then ran water into his cupped hands washing away the white traces of foam and working the water into his eyes with his fingertips, washing away the sleep.

       The reflection that stared back at him when he’d finished was an improvement. Not perfect, not the Nathan Wisecroft of old, but he no longer looked so ancient, so wasted.

       The woman was stirring when he walked back into the bedroom. She rolled onto her back and stared up at him through bleary, sleep-dulled eyes. ‘Hi,’ she said dreamily.

       ‘Hi back,’ Nathan said gruffly. ‘Coffee?’

       The woman propped herself up on one elbow, reached across for the packet of cigarettes on the table beside the bed and lit one, blowing smoke up at the ceiling. ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Coffee’s good. Then come back to bed and fuck me.’

       Nathan looked at her steadily. He wanted her to leave. He should have never brought her back here in the first place, but he’d been drunk and it had been a few weeks since he’d enjoyed a woman.

       ‘You’ve shaved your head,’ she said, finally focusing on him. She was in her forties, running slightly to fat, her flaming red hair fading to a dirty grey at the roots. With her make up slightly smeared, the pallor of sleep still coloring her face, she looked ten years older than she’d appeared the night before. Nathan wondered how he could have ever found her attractive. Then he remembered.

       ‘Coffee, lover,’ she said, jerking him out of his inertia. He picked up the kettle and went back to the bathroom to fill it.

The coffee burned its way down his throat, the caffeine surging through his bloodstream, giving him a shot of energy. The woman hadn’t moved from the bed, but was sitting up, leaning back against the headboard, her pendulous breasts exposed. There were teeth marks around the nipples. His. He felt a surge of self-disgust. ‘Get dressed,’ he said, flopping down on a chair opposite the bed, cupping the coffee mug with both hands.

       ‘Aren’t you coming back to bed?’

       He shook his head.

       She threw back the covers, exposing her bush of pubic hair. ‘It’s juiced up and waiting for you,’ she said, opening her legs slightly in a gesture she imagined was seductive, but the sight of her plump white thighs only succeeded in repulsing him further.

       He leaned forward and scooped up her clothes from the floor and threw them onto the bed. ‘I said get dressed.’

       She gave him a little girl pout and reached for her bra.

       When she left ten minutes later there was no kiss good-bye, no arrangements made to see each other again. They’d met, got what they wanted from each other and parted; an almost businesslike arrangement that they both tacitly acknowledged. He shut the door behind her and sighed with relief.

       He took one step towards the sitting room then cried out and sank to his knees clutching his head. The pain was excruciating; red-hot wires threading through his brain, searing his thoughts. Tears sprang to his eyes and poured down his cheeks, running into his mouth, salty and bitter. ‘Leave me alone,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘Leave... me... alone!’ But it was no use; the agony continued. In a few seconds the pain would recede and vanish as if it had never existed, and he would be left with a vision, a scene playing out in his mind. There had been many such visions recently, far too many to count; each one more vivid than the last; each one a part of a whole. He nearly had the full picture now, but the cost in pain was almost too much to bear. As each new vision increased in clarity, so the pain in his head intensified proportionately. He was not sure he could take much more of it.

       As the pain ebbed away he closed his eyes, channeling his mind, straining his senses to see and hear the scenario playing out in his head.

       Finally it was over and he fell back against the wall, pressing his fists to his eyes. It was worse than he could have imagined, and for the first time in many years he felt fear pressing at the perimeters of his mind, and the fear stirred memories of long ago.

A corrugated iron shack in a shantytown just outside Kingston, a woman shrieking in agony as a man, white, hard and muscular, rode the woman’s body, forcing himself deeper and deeper into her. A small boy watching through a crack in the rusting iron wall, fist balled and stuffed into his mouth to stop himself screaming as he watched his mother being raped. But this was no ordinary rape; not the animal need for sex being relieved forcibly. This was something more.

       When it was over the woman, his mother, would be dead.

       The boy tore his gaze away from the horrific scene being enacted within the shack and ran to another hut several yards away. Inside an old woman sat, her bony fingers clutching an ancient, leather-covered bible tightly to her chest, whilst her withered lips incanted a prayer of salvation. The boy ran to her, tugging at the hem of her dress, shouting at her to do something, anything to help his mother, her daughter. But the old woman remained resolutely immobile; her eyes tightly closed, shutting him out of her mind while she concentrated on her prayers.

       Finally he gave up and ran back to the shack, pressing his face to the corrugated iron, finding the crack again. But the man had gone and his mother was dead, lying on her back on the cot, eyes wide open, staring blindly at the small cloud of flies that were already beginning to circle around her body.

       Fat tears welled up in his eyes and ran down his face. He pulled himself away from the spy hole and walked on bare feet to the rough plywood door, pulling it open and stepped into the cool, shadowed interior. He crouched down beside his mother’s body, stretched out a tentative hand and used his fingertips to gently close her eyes. But not before he’d stared into them and seen the look of horror there.

       It was a look that he would never forget. It would live with him forever, pressing at his thoughts during the daylight hours, and inhabiting his dreams during the many long nights that stretched ahead of him. It would inform his life, giving him direction, and a sense of purpose. But more than that. It would feed the hatred that was beginning to burn inside him; stoking it into an unquenchable fire that would infuse his daily life and never let him forget the moment of his mother’s death. One day, he knew, he would avenge her. He would find the man responsible for taking her life and he would kill him. A life for a life, the Bible said. That would be his mantra from that day on.

Nathan Wisecroft pushed himself to his feet and stumbled through to the bedroom, falling face down onto the bed. Within seconds he was asleep.

       When he awoke it was dark and the noise from the street below was less frenetic, different. Commuter traffic had given way to those bringing their cars into the city for pleasure. Somewhere there was music playing, a thumping dance track, heavy on the bass. Seconds later it had gone as the car stereo producing it passed by.

       He hauled himself from the bed and picked up the cup of cold coffee from earlier, swallowing the dark, bitter liquid as he walked to the wardrobe and took out a clean suit. He laid it on the bed then went to shower.

       Thirty minutes later he was dressed and ready to go out. He picked up his credit cards from the small desk under the window and slid them into his wallet, then he pulled a drawer open in the dressing table and took out what he needed. A clean handkerchief, his reading glasses, a small but powerful spotlight, a leather pouch containing a handful of salt, and a small Bible that he slipped into the pocket of his suit jacket. He never went anywhere without it these days, though he doubted it offered much protection - his faith wasn’t strong enough for that - but it was a minor comfort and, like the salt, there was always the chance that he was underestimating its power.

       He made a final check around the room to see if he’d left anything vital behind, but there was nothing immediately apparent. Trusting that he had everything he needed, he walked from the room, closing and locking the door behind him, and carried down the short corridor to the elevator down to the basement car park.

‘What have you got for me?’

       The thin, rat-faced man shifted on the park bench. He was dressed in a suit, shiny at the elbows and knees, and stained at the lapels with the remnants of his lunch. He ran spindly fingers through his lank, greasy hair and licked his lips. ‘Money first,’ he said. ‘I could lose my job over this.’

       ‘Spare me the cliché.’ Nathan reached into the pocket of his jacket and produced a small brown envelope stuffed with ten-pound notes. He handed it across. The thin man took it, lifted the flap and peered inside.

       ‘Count it if you like, but it’s all there,’ Nathan said.

       The thin man hesitated, fingers twitching. Finally he closed the flap and stowed the envelope away in the scuffed leather attaché case lying on the bench next to him. From the case he took another envelope, larger than the one he’d just been given, and handed it across to Nathan.

       ‘Thank you,’ Nathan said, stood and, without a backward glance, walked from the park and back to his car. He dropped the envelope onto the passenger seat and climbed in after it. With an impatience he’d concealed from the thin man he ripped the seal from the envelope and tipped the contents onto the seat.

       There were a dozen or more ten by eight inch monochrome photographs, a list of names and dates, and two large piece of papers, folded into quarters that he opened out to reveal the floor plans of a house. On the second sheet were more plans, but of a much smaller property. With a grunt of satisfaction he flicked through the photographs. The photographs weren’t brilliant - obviously passport-sized photos over-enlarged. They were grainy, but they would suffice. Finally his eyes ran down the list of names. He smiled to himself. All the usual suspects. He reached the bottom of the list and read the final name. He’d fully expected to see it there, but just reading it made his guts twist and squirm, and produced a hot flush of anger that threatened to engulf him. His fist closed around the paper and he crushed it into a tight ball, holding it tightly, waiting for the anger to subside.

       Finally it faded, leaving him tired, more tired than he had ever been before. He slumped forward, head on the steering wheel. His head swam as the photographs he’d just looked at played like a slideshow in his mind.

       It would soon be over. One way or another, the nightmare he had endured for the past forty years would come to an end. He lifted his head from the wheel, pulled his cell phone from his pocket and punched in a number. The phone on the other end of the line rang twice then a voice said, ‘Hello?’

       ‘It’s begun. Be ready.’

       He ended the call and slipped the phone back into his pocket, then slid the key into the ignition and started the engine. There was nothing to do now but to go home and wait for the call he knew eventually would come.

DEMON EYES  Synopsis

 In a shantytown just outside Kingston, Jamaica, a small boy witnesses his mother being raped and eventually killed. Forty years later Nathan Wisecroft wakes up in a hotel room after a night of cheap sex. His memories of his mother’s murder are still strong. Also he is plagued by visions of the future. Visions so vivid and powerful they are slowly destroying him. The visions are linked to the past and are feeding his desire to avenge his mother’s death.

            Emma Porter works for Keltner Industries, a large multi-national run by the charismatic Alex Keltner. She is offered a job as Keltner’s PA, a role she’s not confident she can fulfill, but accepts because she needs the money. She lives with her lover Helen Carver in a small cottage in Cambridge where Helen runs a livery stable. The morning Emma accepts the job with Keltner, Helen is killed in what appears to be a freak accident at the stables.

             Three seemingly unrelated events, but in fact all linked by one name. Keltner.

             On the day of Helen’s funeral Alex Keltner turns up and asks Emma if she, in her role of PA will accompany him to his house in the New Forest, Bexton Hall. He is holding a house party for a number of his business associates. She accepts and a few days later is driven down to the house by Erik Keltner, Alex’s brother, but who is as repellant as Alex is charming. The people at the house party are a mixed bag, coming from as far afield as America and Japan. Emma finds herself drawn to Nicci Bellini, a beautiful Italian woman, with whom she has a brief fling. Also there is Geoff Brown, the man she previously worked for, who advises her to leave Bexton Hall, but when he’s about to explain his reasons is interrupted by Erik Keltner.

             It soon becomes apparent to Emma that all is not what it seems at Bexton Hall.

EXCERPT

Her heart thumped in her chest as she ran through the forest. She lost her way twice and had to stop to get her bearings, all the while fighting down the panic that was bubbling like lava in her stomach. What the hell had they done to him? And why?

       But she knew the answer to the second question.

       Erik had overhead them talking on the terrace and knew Jeff had been about to tell her something about Alex Keltner and the set up here. Now Jeff had been taken out of the equation. Silenced.

       Guilt mingled with the panic. If she hadn’t accepted Alex’s offer of a job then none of this would have happened.

       She took the path around the side of the cottage and peered in through the window. The place still appeared to be empty. She reached the back door and gave the handle a tug but it was locked. She’d expected nothing else. Further on she came to a small window with frosted glass. A cloakroom perhaps. The window was badly seated in its frame and there was gap large enough to get her fingers in. She squeezed her fingers through the gap and pulled sharply. The window opened with a loud creak.

       She leaned forward and looked in. As she’d suspected it was a cloakroom, with a white porcelain toilet bowl, a matching sink and not much else. The sink was under the window and her trainers left a muddy skid mark as she climbed through. She stopped to wash it away, running her hand around the smooth porcelain, anxious to get rid of any clue that could reveal her presence. Although there didn’t appear to be anyone else here she was taking no chances.

       She moved to the door, opened it an inch and looked out. There was a small carpeted hallway and a couple of doors leading off from it. One led to the lounge where Steiner and Anna had... She blocked off the thought with a shiver of revulsion. The other must lead to the kitchen. At the end of the hall was a flight of stairs.

       She slipped out of the cloakroom and padded along the carpet and crept up the stairs. Once at the top she found herself on a landing with four closed doors to choose from.

       The first one she opened was a linen cupboard, shelved out and filled with bedding and towels. The door next to it gave onto a small bedroom. There was a bed, a chair and a whitewood wardrobe. The bed was unmade, sheets and blankets folded neatly and stacked at the end of the naked mattress, but there was nothing else in the room; no Jeff.

       The next room she tried was similar, but this one had its bed made up, the blankets covered by a chintz quilt, but still no sign that anyone was using it.

       She approached the door of the last bedroom, wrapped her hand around the handle. Just as she was about to turn it, she heard a sound from below and froze, her heart leaping to her throat. Downstairs the front door opened, closely followed by heavy footsteps sounding on the stairs.

       Close to panic she ran back to the room she’d just left and ducked inside just as the footsteps reached the top of the stairs, then cursed silently as she realized the footsteps were heading in her direction.

       She glanced about the room looking for a hiding place. There was only one, and without further thought she slid her body under the bed.

       The footsteps stopped outside her room, then moved on. She heard the door to the next room open and for a moment there was silence. Then the footsteps started again, heavier this time. And then the door to her room opened.

       She looked out from under the bed and saw a pair of denim clad legs. She held her breath, watching as the legs moved across her line of sight. Above her head the mattress sagged as something heavy was dropped on it. Then the legs moved back to the door and out onto the landing. The door closed and Emma let the air in her lungs escape in a long, low exhalation.

       From outside the room she could still hear the sound of movement. Another door opened and closed, followed by silence, but she stayed where she was in case the denim legs came back to her room.

       Eventually she heard the heavy footsteps sound on the stairs and the front door slam shut. Whoever it was had gone.

          She crawled out from underneath the bed and stood up, brushing her clothes down with her hands to get rid of the dust bunnies clinging to them, then turned to see what had been dropped onto the bed.

EXCERPT ENDS

          
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