Bedfellow - Softcover

Shipp, Jeremy

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1250175291 ISBN 13: 9781250175298

Verlag: Tor.com, 2018

Inhaltsangabe

From Jeremy C. Shipp, the Bram Stoker Award-nominated author of The Atrocities, comes a tense dark fantasy novel of psychological horror in Bedfellow.

It broke into their home and set up residence in their minds.

When the . . . thing first insinuated itself into the Lund family household, they were bemused. Vaguely human-shaped, its constantly-changing cravings seemed disturbing, at first, but time and pressure have a way of normalizing the extreme. Wasn't it always part of their lives?

As the family make more and greater sacrifices in service to the beast, the thrall that binds them begins to break down. Choices must be made. Prices must be paid. And the Lunds must pit their wits against a creature determined to never let them go.

It's psychological warfare. Sanity is optional.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Jeremy C. Shipp

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Bedfellow

By Jeremy C. Shipp, Lee Harris

Tom Doherty Associates

Copyright © 2018 Jeremy C. Shipp
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-250-17529-8

Contents

Title Page, 
Copyright Notice, 
Dedication, 
FRIDAY, 
SATURDAY, 
SUNDAY, 
MONDAY, 
TUESDAY, 
Excerpt: THE ATROCITIES, 
The Atrocities, 
Acknowledgments, 
About the Author, 
ALSO BY JEREMY C. SHIPP, 
Copyright Page, 

CHAPTER 1

FRIDAY

Hendrick

Hendrick prides himself on always responding well to an emergency, but he freezes in place when a man in a Space Jam nightshirt crawls through their living room window. The intruder carries a tattered grocery bag, which leaks a bright green ooze onto the hardwood floor. These floors are only two years old, Hendrick wants to tell the man, but of course he doesn't.

Instead, he says, "Go upstairs."

The man in the nightshirt tilts his head to the side, as if wondering why he should go upstairs at a time like this. But obviously Hendrick is speaking to his wife, who's sitting on the leather couch behind him. He can feel her fear emanating against his back, the same way he can sense her displeasure at a crowded office party.

"Imani, go," he says.

To be quite honest, Hendrick has often fantasized about a moment like this. On a date with his wife, Hendrick will imagine a man with a semiautomatic charging into the movie theater. In his mind, Hendrick will crawl through the aisle and lunge forward and burrow his thumbs into the terrorist's eyes.

In the here and now, Hendrick doesn't lunge forward. But he does take a step and point a threatening finger at the man's grimy face.

"Get the fuck out of my house," Hendrick says, proud of the line. He's feeling bolder by the second, because this Space Jam guy is obviously some poor, unarmed bastard who probably thinks he's in Narnia right now. Hendrick grew up in San Diego, and there he learned that homeless people are almost always harmless. He recalls a friend of his throwing an empty Dr Pepper can at an old man in a bright pink robe, and the old man only whispered and turned away.

"Listen, buddy," Hendrick says, sounding a little too much like his father for his taste. "I don't want to call the police if I don't have to." In truth, he's already thinking about tonight's news report, where he's standing, slightly dazed in front of his house, the red and blue lights flashing on his face. Rosalita Little will come at him with her oversized microphone and say, "What inspired you to confront the intruder yourself, Mr. Lund?"

The nightshirt man responds to Hendrick's threat by smiling a little.

"Do you have Howard the Duck on Bluray?" the man says, swinging his grocery bag gently from side to side. He speaks in a melodious, high-pitched voice that Hendrick finds offensive. "I heard there's a naked duck woman with boobs in that movie. Have you seen it?"

"I'm calling the police," Hendrick says, his Android already in his hand. "This is your last chance to get the fuck out of here."

"A DVD would be fine too, if you don't have a Bluray." The strange man sprays a line of green goo all over the floor with his damn swinging.

While Hendrick dials 911, the nightshirt man opens his grocery bag and stares inside with almost pupilless eyes. What kind of drug does that to a person's eyes?

"Nine-one-one," the dispatcher says. "What's your emergency?"

Hendrick opens his mouth but his words catch in his throat like a craggy chunk of ice he accidentally swallowed. For one ridiculous moment, he considers asking the dispatcher why a duck would even have boobs when they're not mammals. This is a common enough occurrence for Hendrick, whose thoughts often veer left during somber situations like funerals or project meetings or arguments with his wife. He'll often burst into laughter and embarrass himself. He makes sure not to laugh now.

"Nine-one-one," the dispatcher says again.

"I think my bag is leaking," the homeless man says.

In an attempt at an even tone, Hendrick explains the situation and gives his address. He gives his address a second time, just in case.

Hendrick doesn't go upstairs and lock himself in a room with his family, as the dispatcher suggests. He strolls over to the fireplace and picks up the glass Coke bottle that someone (probably Kennedy) left on the mantelpiece. The girl never does pick up after herself.

The Space Jam guy studies Hendrick with his tiny eyes. "I've heard that Mexican Coke is better than the regular kind. Is that true?"

Hendrick stands at the bottom of the stairs, with his arms crossed over his chest. He waits. He can feel a rivulet of sweat trickling down his back, and part of him wishes for an end to all this. The other part isn't quite done yet.

Kennedy

As a small child, Kennedy would navigate the world as an intrepid explorer, climbing cabinets and squeezing between fence posts and disappearing into clothing racks at the mall. Now, at thirteen years old, she still feels that whirling, staticky energy inside her. She sits on the bathroom tile, wriggling each of her toes, wanting to race downstairs to her dad.

"Has he texted you back yet?" Kennedy says.

"Not yet," her mom says, standing right next to the bathroom door. "I'm sure he's fine. The police will be here soon."

Her mother called the police hours (or was it minutes?) ago. Kennedy knows that some guy came into their house, but what disturbs her most is how quiet and still her house has become. She expected yelling, screaming, struggling. Instead, she can't hear anything from downstairs. Her mom and brother are hardly moving. Even the wind outside seems to have died down since they locked themselves in here. The girl realizes her thoughts are running rampant in her head, and she's being ridiculous, but the silence of her home still disquiets her.

Sitting beside her, Tomas hands her an ant in a top hat drawn on his yellow notepad. Drawing Battle often begins with an insect or a mouse. Kennedy takes the ballpoint pen and starts sketching an anthropomorphic shoe that could smash the ant. Next, Tomas will draw a ball of flame or any object or creature that could destroy the shoe, and the game will go on from there. Kennedy doesn't consider herself much of an artist, and her turns tend to last a minute or less. Tomas, on the other hand, will strain himself to create a moon with craters for eyes and mountain ranges for lips. He'll spawn a giant robotic jerboa crushing New York City. He'll always end the game by drawing God, who, depending on the day, will turn out to be a Gandalf-looking wizard or a hippo vomiting a swirling galaxy.

After Kennedy finishes her cross-eyed shoe, she stands and cracks her knuckles.

"Can you not?" her mother says, still tapping at her phone.

Kennedy is bewildered by the fact that her mother could worry about knuckle-cracking at a time like this, but her mother often surprises her in this way.

"Has he texted yet?" the teenager says.

"No," her mother says, with a small quiver in her voice. "I'll let you know when he does."

At the sound of the small quiver, the static inside Kennedy whirls faster. She imagines her father lying on the hardwood floor downstairs, being silently strangled by a man in a black ski mask. Kennedy sidesteps her brother and slowly reaches out to touch the brass handle of the bathroom door.

Before her mother notices what's happening, Kennedy scrambles outside and surges down the hallway. Eventually, she slows and turns...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Tor.com
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2018
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1250175291
• ISBN 13: 9781250175298
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 222
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: preigu GmbH & Co. KG; mail@preigu.de; ; Lengericher Landstr. 19; Osnabrück; Niedersachsen; 49078; Deutschland