EXCERPT FROM CITY LONG SUFFERING; TROUBLE 'ROUND HERE

Hey, fiends! Here's an excerpt from from latest book, City Long Suffering. If you like what you read you can get the e-book HERE for $3.99 and the physical book HERE for$11.99. 
The afternoon was wearing down when Robert pulled into a large gas station. As he unscrewed the cap he scanned the parking lot and street and saw the Camaro from earlier in the day driving by slowly from the direction they’d just come. It pulled into the parking lot of a grocery store across the street. The driver parked by the entrance, but the engine was still running. By the time the gas tank was full the occupants had still not gotten out. Robert replaced the cap and slid back behind the wheel, watching the rear view mirror.

“What? You see something, Robert?”

“That Camaro that passed us earlier. Somehow they got

 behind us again and just parked across the street.”

“How many were in the car?”

“Two.”

“Ok. Just take off like nothing’s wrong. It might just be

 a coincidence.”

“Right.”

Bad Penny had dozed off, but opened her eyes as the engine restarted.

“Mmmm-where are we?”

“South Carolina.”

“Yikes. How much farther should we go?”

“I was going to stop here, but I think we’ve got a tail.”

“Oh shit, for real? Robert what the fuck are you going to do?”

“He’s going to drive and we’re all going to stay calm. If there’s trouble, I’m a good shot.”

Robert put the car in drive and pulled out onto the street, passing the Camaro. About half a block

 past and the Camaro pulled out too.

“Damn.”

Robert put the pedal to the floor, whipping into the oncoming lane past a pick up truck and then

 a hard right up a small hill. The street lead into a neighborhood and Robert started taking rights

 and lefts, but he never lost the Camaro that were just behind them at every turn.

Robert bounced the Charger out onto a four-lane highway keeping it floored, but the Camaro was

 driving right up his ass.

“We need to find a crowded shopping center or something…”

“Not if there’s going to be shooting. Look, pull into that church. I’m gonna stop this shit right now.”

Ann had the gun in her hand and turned the safety off. Robert took a hard left, skidding a bit and

nearly hitting the brick sign. The Camaro had to swerve, bouncing into the shallow ditch and into 

the parking lot. By the time they were able to stop Ann was already out of the car leveling the gun 

at them.

The passenger jumped out first with a sawed off shotgun. Ann pumped a single slug through his throat. 

As that was happening, the driver was getting out, but the sight of his partner’s blood splashing across 

the windshield gave him pause-time enough for Ann to shoot out the front left tire.

Robert had gotten out and was moving low behind her.

“Stay back, Robert. You! Get out of the car or I’ll put a bullet between your eyes!”

The driver got out, hands raised.

“Whoa, whoa! I don’t know what’s goin’ on, lady! I was just told to follow you!”

“Yea, and I guess you didn’t know your buddy had a shotgun? Put your hands on the hood and spread 

your legs. Robert, check him. And get ready to get messy, because if he moves, I’m blowing his 

brains out.”

Robert patted him down and took a .38 from his waistband and his wallet. Robert looked in the 

back and saw more guns, a machete, a chainsaw, baseball bats, rope, and chains.

Robert turned to Ann, “They’re boy scouts.”

“Huh?”

“They’ve got enough hardware back here, they’ve prepared for everything.”

Ann stood behind the driver, reaching around to hold the pistol under his chin.

“You kill those people yourself? Huh? Or are there more of you?”

“I didn’t kill anyone.”

“Then who told you to follow us?”

“You ain’t gonna live long enough to find out, bitch.”

“Oh, did you find your balls?”

Robert was going through the car, “I found his cell phone! …Damn, there’re only initials by the 

numbers.”

“Don’t worry, Porter will figure it out.”

“Nooooo heeee woooooon’t.”

“No?”

“Shit, I bet he’s already dead.”

Ann took a step back and put a bullet through the back of his left knee. He dropped to the ground 

screaming profanity. Bad Penny was slack jawed and got a chill when Ann turned her head to the 

side admiring her own handy work.

“I lost my son two years ago. I also lost my ability to give a shit about, well, almost anyone. Except 

my husband. He’s not dead. In fact,”

She shot his other knee.

“He’s going to kill whoever sent you after us and anyone else connected to you all. Robert, get his 

keys and then help me dump him in his car.”

Robert pulled the keys out of the ignition and pocketed them. Then he pulled the driver up by the 

armpits, while Ann grabbed him by the belt keeping the gun pointing at his face. They stuffed him 

behind the wheel and closed the door. Ann turned toward the Charger stumbling a bit, shaking so 

bad she almost dropped the gun.

“J-Jesus!”

“Are you ok, Ann?”

She grabbed Robert’s shoulder.

“That was crazy, huh?!”

He chuckled, “Uh, yea.”

Ann got out her cell phone and hit Porter’s number. She smiled at Bad Penny mouthing ‘holy shit!’ 

to Robert.

Porter’s phone rang almost until the voice mail would have picked up.

“Hi, cunt. Where you at?”

Robert caught Ann as her legs gave out. She stared at the phone in disbelief. Robert took it from 

her and hit speaker. There was a gravelly voice calling out to her.

“Are you there, you dried up bitch?”

“Who is this?!”

“Would you believe the Terrible Head? Now who are you, homie?”

Ann screamed into the phone, “Where’s Porter?!”

“He’s right here, mama! Relax. Tell me where you are and we’ll come get you and you can see him. 

Where’s my boys? I know they were on you just a little bit ago.”

“Bleeding, mother fucker! One’s already dead!”

“Awwww! That’s so unfriendly.”

Ann tore away from Robert with the phone and ran to the Camaro. She jerked the door open and put 

a bullet into the driver’s crotch.

“Who’s on this phone, asshole?! Who has my husband?!”

He just screamed and shook his head.

She shot him in the belly next.

“WHO, god dammit?!”

On the phone the Terrible Head was whooping and hollering. “Kill’em, bitch! Go on! You ain’t 

seeing yer old man in one piece ever again any way!”

Ann shot the driver in the face and started walking toward the Charger. She said into the phone, 

“I’ll see you soon,” and hung up.

“Ann…”

“We’re going home. Pop the trunk.”

Robert hit the button on the key fob and he and Bad Penny followed Ann to the rear of the car.

Bad Penny slapped Robert in the chest, “Holy shit, dude!”

The trunk was full of shotguns, semi-automatic assault rifles, and handguns. Ann started popping 

rounds into the chambers and handing them to Robert.

“Put them up front.”

“Are expecting the zombie apocalypse, Mrs. Gray?”

She glanced back at Bad Penny.

“We expect everything.”

“Ann, what about Porter? Should we call Ray or Sam?”

She thought about it for a second.

“I don’t know who we can really trust at the department. I can’t think of anything Ray could do. 

Daily. I’ll call Sergeant Daily with the highway patrol. Porter liked…likes him.”

They all got back into the car. Ann looked back at Bad Penny.

“What to do with you?”

“What do you mean?”

“This is going to get ugly. We need to drop you off somewhere safe.”

“I would really feel safest with you!”

“Ann, someone else could be following us. If we drop her off they might take her.”

“Yea…you ever shoot a gun before?”

“No.”

“Then take the shotgun. You don’t need to be a good shot with it.”

Robert found the fastest way back to Maupins with the GPS and headed for the interstate.

Ann went through her contacts and found Sergeant Daily’s name and hit ‘call’.

AMERICAN KIDS excerpt from my new book CITY LONG SUFFERING; FIRST MOVEMENT

This story is not about Joseph ‘Goody’ Hawthorne. He wasn’t an exceptional person. He wasn’t well liked. About the only thing that could be said about Hawthorne, as a kid was that he had an unbridled curiosity and a mean streak a mile long.

This story is not about William Wilder. He was exceptional. Driven. Friendless, but by choice. His teachers fawned over his work ethic and inventiveness. Though they worried what the hell he might grow up to be.

Hawthorne came from a middle class home. His father worked at Bard’s Furniture factory and his mother was a waitress part time at Kramer’s Diner. He wasn’t unloved, just unnoticed. His parents spent most of their time at home half dozing in front of the TV while Hawthorne explored the woods that separated their neighborhood from Maupins City.

Wilder’s father was a busy man. A man people feared. On the outside the Wilder’s looked like a bunch of hillbillies. Their home was a two-story plantation style house that was as old as Maupins itself. It was nicknamed the Leaning Tower of Carter County. The vast yard was littered with broken down cars, rusted out farm equipment, and a bunch of mean guard dogs. Behind this white trash façade laid a nest of vipers. The Wilders were notorious in Carter County. They were old time moon shiners and grew marijuana. Back in the union days, they murdered strikebreakers and intimidated blacks and foreigners that the coal company tried to hire while the real miners were on strike. If there was a murder somewhere in the county, you could bet that William’s father Cecil and his brothers probably had a hand in it, but no one could ever pin anything on him.

Hawthorne would spend his evenings in the living room after dinner doing homework (or not) and then playing with his little green army men. Until he discovered girls, then he’d just stare blankly at the TV trying to hide his erection that’d pop up almost constantly. He never cared about what his parents were watching, but his interest was piqued when his parents had a rare squabble about what they were going to watch. His father insisted on watching the movie Helter Skelter, but his mother wanted no part of it. They both dug their heels in, but his father won and his mother went to bed. Hawthorne paid close attention to this movie, what was so special about it that made his parents actually talk to each?

Wilder didn’t care about TV either; he couldn’t care even if he wanted to. During school there could be no distractions from schoolwork. His father expected nothing less than straight A’s. William would be the last of the Wilders to have to get by with their fists or risk prison to make a buck. By God, that boy would go to Harvard and be a lawyer or something! So he didn’t see Helter Skelter, but he did read the book.

Both boys were enthralled with the wild tales of Charlie Manson and his ‘family’. For two disenfranchised kids with no friends in a dead end town with nothing to do, besides getting beat up by drunken soldiers or rednecks, Helter Skelter offered an attractive outsider identity that separated them from the rest of the chaff in high school.

Wilder and Hawthorne didn’t know each other, though they had both lived here all their lives. Had the Hawthornes known their son went to school with a Wilder they would have warned him to stay far, far away. Wilder’s father would have equally disapproved of his son hanging out with one of those typical pus bag American ass-wipes. Those shit heads with their asshole TVs and slave wage jobs, all red, white, and blue. Fuck them.

Wilder was wound up too tight for friendships and Hawthorne had nothing to say to anyone, but they found themselves sitting across from each other in the library. It was study hall during their junior year. At first Hawthorne was indignant about Wilder sitting down at his table, the little nerd, but as he unpacked his backpack Hawthorne became more interested in him. Besides a couple of school books, Wilder had a ragged copy of The Exorcist (Hawthorne loved the movie), a book on cults in America, and a book about Jack the Ripper.

“Have you seen Helter Skelter?”

Wilder looked up with a smirk at the head banger with the Manson hair and Freddy Krueger t-shirt.

That was twenty years ago and this story isn’t about them. Well, not just about them anyway.


(City Long Suffering; First Movement is available HERE)

EXCERPT FROM CONSPIRACY OF BIRDS; CHURCH OF THE MIDNIGHT CHOIR

(COPYRIGHT 2011/2014 TIM MURR/ST ROOSTER BOOKS)

The air was all warm mist and misery. The humidity had intensified with the afternoon’s thunderstorm, which had blown in off the ocean quickly and left everything uncomfortable and damp. The rain always turned up the garbage smell. Made the neon beer signs and gas lamps look like something out of a horror movie.

I’d been popping into the usual spots trying to find Lucky. No one’d seen Lucky, but they all kept asking me about Lenny. If I’d heard what happened to him. I said no all seven times and all seven times I was told about how he’d been found down an alley with his skull bashed in.

Nobody cared that he was dead. Nobody liked him. It was just an addiction to the sensational and the dark that kept everyone talking about it. The black trucks rolled down the streets every morning picking bodies out of the gutters or out of alleys or out of their desperate little rooms. Death was as common clouds here, but Lenny was killed with passion. The killer took a minute, not to snuff out a life, but to say something. That underlined the event. That got people talking. Passion is currency. Passion gets papers printed. Passion gets radio specters pouring out of speakers and into the consciousness of the listeners. Passion is a gossip machine. Passion captures the imagination. Passion is mental cocaine for the masses.

This particular night was nothing special, just one out ten million. I strolled past the hookers and the religious freaks and the bums. Foreign sailors chased girls and cursed in languages. Young men hassled scrap collectors. Cops cruised by in patchwork patrol cars with chicken wire welded over the windows. No one was really up to anything and in this place that meant it was just the calm before the storm.

Whatever the storm wound up being, I don’t know. I missed it, because I went to church. Not on purpose, mind you. Just wound up there. Sometimes you get caught up with a movement of people and just go where the current takes you. That’s what happened when I rounded the corner into a dark neighborhood, with shot out street lights, and on to the road that goes past the mission with the big red neon cross. Lots of people of all shapes, sizes, colors, and species shuffling along, muttering to each other.

I was lost in my own head, not paying attention to my feet until the neon cross was directly over my head and I was being gently pushed through the doors. I’d been here once before, when I’d had too much to drink and had passed out on the sidewalk. The preacher who kept the place was a nice guy. I liked him. He took care of me. The place had been a gym, but they slapped the neon on the roof and painted a sign that said ‘Mission’ and ‘Church of the Midnight Choir’.

I wanted to turn back, but I was too tired to push through the throng coming up behind me, so I grabbed a pew in the back and collapsed. There was a hymnal in the pocket in front of me and a pot-bellied drunk to my right. The place was filling up quickly while a stiff looking lady with thick glasses played an old synthesizer set to ‘organ’. She played one song continuously, I don’t know what it was called, but I felt it in my bones. Like I’ve always known it.

There was graffiti carved into the wood on the pews. Some religious, some profane;

‘There is no hell just endless darkness’

‘That is hell’

‘For a good time suck my dick’

‘Fag’

‘I want to go home’

‘Thomas D was here 1867-2102’

‘Just accept love’

‘Bullshit’

‘My name is Sid guess what I did’

‘Jesus is love’

‘No one ever loved me’

The music faded off a single note and the preacher stepped up on stage. He looked tired, with swollen lips, like he’d been punched in the face, and a slight limp. He fixed the congregation with a look of warmth, took a deep breath, and opened his fat lips. 

“We’ve all got blood on our hands…in one way or another. We’re all guilty of something. So we can begin tonight knowing that we are all on common ground. We’re all sinners. We all fall short of God’s expectations. In that failure we can we look to one another and say ‘brother, sister, I’m with you’.”

He took a sip of coffee from the Styrofoam cup on the little table to his left that was piled high with a large Bible and stacks of papers. His congregation looked like they were waiting in line to be whipped. I took a deep breath and crossed my arms. Blood. Sinners. God’s expectations. It was going to be a long night.

Preacher man looked lost, like he had no idea what he was going to say next, or why he was even there.

“I hear it everyday; Why are we here? What is the point? Where is God? Well, I don’t know. I preach the word. I’m not a psychic. I don’t know much more than anyone else, it’s just that my brain is tuned into a radio wave not everyone can pick up. It’s not a blessing...it’s hard! You say ‘why that tornado?’ and I say ‘Jesus loves you.’ And you say ‘so what?’ And some of you…why do you even come here? You demand answers and I tell you what I know and you punch me! One of you tried to stab me! You come here with all your filth and lies and anger…”

The pot-bellied man beside me had started vigorously scratching his belly and grunting with discomfort.

“Whether you like my answers or not…one truth remains…whether you like it or not…and none of your sorcerers or poets or scientists or soldiers can change the fact…that Hell is real…and Satan is real…and me and all my ‘useless’ words…are the only thing standing between you and him!”

The man was clawing at his belly with both hands. Tears streaming down his face.

“And you’ll never wash the blood off your hands!”

The man’s lap was covered in blood and he’d bit through his bottom lip.

“What’s done in the dark will come to light!”

Skeletal hands ripped through the man’s belly while the preacher’s neck began to stretch and twist reaching out across the congregation, coming at me. I couldn’t move.

“The Avenger of Blood knows who you are! He’s waiting outside those city limits! For YOU!”

 The pot-bellied man nudged me in the ribs and my face fell out of my palm. I looked at him scared shitless. He whispered, ‘you were snorin’. I thanked him and focused on the smiling preacher who was talking a wedding and virgins and their wicks.

I ducked out quickly and hit the wet streets with ghosts breathing down my neck. Just another night. Except not really. Lenny was dead and in what was left of this world he had been the best friend I had. Phantoms and nightmares ran me out of my hotel room and were going to keep me running.

I saw Juliet walking arm in arm with bullish man with scarred knuckles. She said hello with her eyes from across the street, but otherwise gave no indication that she’d noticed me. They went into a building I thought was abandoned and I shuddered hard. A police car sped past and I hit the first alley I came to, running fast back to the safety of the hotel bar.

Cheap whiskey, take me away!

CONSPIRACY OF BIRDS IS LIVE!

Available right now; my new e-novella Conspiracy of Birds. Just $2.99 from Smashwords.com.
Not exactly horror, but couldn't exist without my obsession with horror. Conspiracy was inspired by my nightmares. I hope everyone checks it out!










'I didn't want to burn any bridges, but I doused them real good with gasoline just in case.' Conspiracy Of Birds is the new novella from Tim Murr, creator and writer for the blog Stranger With Friction and author of Lose This Skin. It is a hallucinatory skin dive into the nightmare world of a failed writer living on the broken edges of America.