Fuckin’ Lie Down Already By Tom Piccirilli Cover and interior art by Caniglia Release Date: LIMITED EDITION ALMOST SOLD OUT! NOW AVAILABLE FOR THE FIRST TIME IN PAPERBACK!! Limited Edition (200 copies) SOLD OUT   Traycased Lettered Edition (26 copies) SOLD OUT Trade Paperback Edition $11.95

Editions:

Limited Edition of only 200 copies, numbered and signed by the author and artist.

Traycased Lettered Edition of only 26 copies, signed by the author and artist, and including an audio CD of Diamond Mozzarella by Tom Picirilli, read by Brian Keene.

Trade Paperback Edition with the same fantastic cover and interior art as the Limited Edition, but not limited to any specific number of copies, and not signed by the contributors.

Description:

Clay was an honest New York City cop driven to bring down the mob and make his city a little safer, even when it seemed like nothing he did made any difference. He always played by the rules until a two-bit junkie hit man destroyed his family and left him for dead.

But Clay won't let himself lie down until he gets one last thing: revenge.

Reviews:

ReallyScary.com - http://www.reallyscary.com/reviewsliedown.asp

What's Been Said About This Title:

"A potent mix of GoodFellas and the classic 1950 Edmond O'Brien film D.O.A. A
pedal-to-the-metal cops and mobsters roller coaster ride -- this story delivers!"

-Al Sarrantonio, author of Moonbane and Orangefield

"Short, tight, effective crime fiction. My kind of writing."

-Ed Gorman, author of The Poker Club, The Autumn Dead and The Day the Music Died

"Hard, hard, hard noir, and very well done."

-Bill Pronzini, author of Spook and Step to the Graveyard

"This is a small masterpiece. It's said that the devil's in the details and Tom got all the details exactly right. I always said Pic was one to watch. Fuck watching. He's utterly there. A voice to listen to and learn from."

-Jack Ketchum, author of Red and The Lost

"Amazing!"

-John Skipp, author of Conscience and The Emerald Burrito of Oz

About the Author:

Tom Piccirilli is the author of ten novels, including The Night Class, A Lower Deep, Hexes, The Deceased, and Grave Men. He's published over 150 stories in the mystery, horror, erotica, and science fiction fields. Tom has been a final nominee for the World Fantasy Award and he is the winner of the first Bram Stoker Award given in the category of Outstanding Achievement in Poetry. Tom lives in Estes Park, Colorado, in the shadow of the Stanley Hotel, the basis for Stephen King's The Shining. Learn more about his work at www.tompiccirilli.com

Excerpt:

Coincidence only carries so far, and then you’ve just got to figure the universe wants to fuck you up as much as possible.

Clay had been on the road for two days straight when he got pulled over for failing to signal. He was in upstate New York someplace, a few miles outside of Winnoroneck, a small town where everybody had a half acre of yard, picket fence, and an enormous bird bath you could set a helicopter down in.

Still had a while to go before he hit Saratoga. Nothing out here but fields, orchards, meadows, and bumpkin cops laying in wait behind billboards.

The air conditioner roared against his knees, the constant thrum of the fan cooling his fever some, but the thick fluids leaking from his stomach had begun to ice up. Clay kept chewing his tongue, wondering why he’d never bothered to try and leave Brooklyn and make a run for a better life. What it was that kept him rooted in the Heights when he could’ve just as easily moved Kath and Edward up here, gone for hay rides in wagons every Saturday afternoon. Raked his lawn and trimmed the hedges and gone cherry picking in summer.

It sounded like it might’ve been all right, so long as he didn’t go shit-smearing insane from boredom.

Clay didn’t wait in his seat for the cop to come right up.

With a groan, he shifted sideways, grabbed his service revolver from under the seat, and pocketed it. The obscenely colorful frost on his torn shirt and exposed stomach cracked loose and disintegrated. He zipped up his jacket knowing he had to make some kind of play before the cop ran his plates.

There was still a little time left, maybe just enough for him to finish the job. He patted Kathy’s hand, rubbing at the small rosebud tattoo on her wrist and upsetting the flies. “Nice place up this way. You can smell them cooking cider in the valley. This could’ve worked for us, I think. Christ, Kath, they got oak trees all lined up and down the roads like an estate.”

It was tough leaning over into the passenger seat, but he had to snatch another wad of paper towels before he did anything else. Clay wiped his sweaty face down with them, then jammed a handful up under his jacket against his rotting belly. The stink of his own shit oozing over his belt buckles gave him the dry heaves again but there was nothing left to bring up. Straining, he managed to clamber out of the car without letting loose a scream.

The cop couldn’t have been more then twenty-one at the outside, rail-thin but trying to puff his chest out, showing off the badge with pride. Bet he polished it every night before his bedtime prayers. Tremendous shoulders that proved he did plenty of military presses in the gym, spent at least four days a week on the machines. The kid was new enough on the job that he still chased after every small street infraction he found on the road. It was a pretty good way to buoy your manhood, Clay remembered, until you saw your first shotgun victim. You quit worrying about writing up tickets for loose mufflers right around then.

Crewcut, blonde hair, but with a touch of Asian in his features. He had no radio on his belt, and Clay had watched him park and get out. He hadn’t called in the stop. The hell kind of county was this? What sort of training program did they give the rookies up here before sending them into the sheriff’s department or the state patrol? The kid didn’t even unsnap his holster, didn’t place his hand on his gun.

They were five hours out of Brooklyn, and it was a whole other world.

“Please get back into your car, sir. I need to see your license and registration.”

“Sure, Officer,” Clay said. “Gotta make the streets safe.” He couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of his voice—amazing how the old habits could bubble up even now, with Edward eyeing him from the back seat.

“Excuse me?”

“Never know when those produce smugglers might come through and try to filch a few apples.”

“Sir, there’s no need to take that tone with me.”

“You’re right. Sorry.”

“License and registration please, sir.”

“Just take a second.”

Only a slight breeze stirred the treetops, and the grass of the meadows gently rippled as if some unnamable sorrow or beauty were slowly shrugging closer. The kid hadn’t even looked inside Clay’s car yet. These people up here weren’t prepared for anything.

Clay’s wallet had been soaked through with blood and digestive juice, and the contents had dried together into a filthy lump. If he could just work the leather flaps open and get his badge out, maybe the ignorant cop would get back into his cruiser and go home and mow his lawn for the third time this week.

But the flies started coming after Clay, and the wind shifted enough so that the kid finally glanced up and furrowed his brow.

“What’s that smell?”

“I don’t smell anything.” Clay tried pulling his wallet open again but flakes and chunks of his own shit fell to the ground. The flies kept after him—he hadn’t shut the car door all the way and the heat had roused the insects inside. They congregated now on the window, crawling over the glass. The buzzing grew louder.

“Jesus…what…?” The kid said the name “Jesus” the same way that Clay’s mother and grandmother used to, with reverence and a hint of very real fear.

“Okay, I lied,” Clay said. “That would be me. Peritonitis.” His fist was crusted with black blood from his seeping intestines.

The young cop started to pick up on the fact that something bad was going on here that he’d never run into before. He took his ticket book and held it out in front of him as if it might help him to figure out exactly what was happening. He still thought all the answers were in the manual. The kid’s mother probably had a pumpkin pie waiting for him on the kitchen table, fresh out of the oven.

A rush of rage and jealousy burst inside Clay. His mouth began to frame his son’s name but he couldn’t speak it aloud.

“Jesus God,” the kid whispered as he started to choke, trying to hold down his puke. “The flies. Your car.”

“Yeah, it’s getting pretty rank in there.”

The kid spotted Kath in the passenger seat, her ashen face slack but inflexible, still beautiful in its own way. Clay watched the cop turning now, looking through the back window at Edward strapped into the car seat, lips black, and his once tiny face now bloated to three times its normal size. The crushed Chihuahua was lying near his lap, almost bent in two, with its muzzle frozen into a snarl. Edward’s eyes were half-open and somehow sharply focused into a bitter glare.

“They’re…”

“I’m a New York City Homicide Detective,” Clay said. He’d never sounded more ridiculous in his entire life.

The young cop drew his gun and pointed it with a trembling hand at Clay’s chest. Finally a reaction that Clay could understand. It instantly relaxed and comforted him. Maybe he’d brought a little of Brooklyn along with him.

“Why don’t you do your job, kid?” Clay said, holding his wet and slithery stomach, surprised at the frenzy in his own voice. He thought he’d been holding up pretty good until then, considering. “There’s a killer on the loose.”

From the Offical Release at the Horrorfind Convention 2003:

Tom Picirilli (left) and Roger Range (right) with Endeavor Press's first release, Fuckin' Lie Down Already.