They came from the darkness at the back of the stage, with the easy speed of eight-legged creatures. Rona felt the whoop rising from her lungs to join the roar of the crowd.

The Scorpions scuttled to their low, custom instruments: theremin, drum machine, sampler, turntable. A siren whine, a backbeat, fast and loud.

The bass drove Rona’s heartbeat.

The crowd bounced like a single organism, every strobe a snapshot. Between flashes, the exoskeletons on stage glowed blue-green in the ambient black light. Continue reading →

He was never an emotional man. Even as a child when his brother Billy teased him something awful Taylor never showed his cards, but what happened to him, what he brought on, changed everything.

“Even the air stank of death,” Taylor whispered running his fingers across the bars. The metal was always cold. Everything was always cold down to the coffee. Day three hundred on death row was going to be just as dark as day one. Continue reading →

They sped down the latest back road Jesse had turned onto, gravel and dust kicking up in the pickup’s wake.

“Any signal on that thing yet?” he asked Elaine.

“Be patient, dammit. Don’t you think I’d tell you if it was working?”

Jesse growled. “Just let me know when you figure out where the hell we are.”

“At least we haven’t seen any cops.” Continue reading →

Death-gray knuckles smacked the wire-latticed safety glass leaving a smear like a squashed grasshopper on a windshield. The zombie finished with a strangled moan.

“Was that a double-double?” I returned the undead creature’s vapid gaze with one of my own and pushed the metal lever beside me. A Plexiglas window slid open revealing a small box. “Swag first. You know the rules.” Continue reading →