From the Crypt of the Grinning Skull - Issue #2
From the editor's desk...
Just a reminder...
We're at the Merrimack Valley Halloween Book Festival from 10:00 am to 1:30 pm. If you're in the area, stop by and say "Hi!".
Now Available
Martin "Wags" Wagner, an aging catcher relegated to a minor-league affiliate of the San Francisco Giants, is offered a new assignment—take a promising young pitcher under his wing and show him the ropes. Martin's manager is cagey about the new player, giving only his name, Andrei Dinescu, and his country of origin, Moldova. Despite the mysterious circumstances, Martin accepts the assignment, hoping to earn a return to the big leagues.
After his first bullpen session with the new pitcher, Martin is stunned by Andrei’s lack of physical ability and his unfamiliarity with baseball. However, with each passing week, Andrei’s strength and skill grow exponentially, and his miraculous leaps in both ability and pitch velocity frighten Martin. His fear is compounded by the organization’s obvious attempts to keep Andrei separated from the rest of the team.
When Martin discovers the shocking truth about Andrei Dinescu, he realizes his path back to the big leagues is one stained with horror and blood.
Excerpt from Aeryn Rudel's Effectively Wild...
"Give me the heater," Martin said and held his glove up. Even from sixty feet, six inches away, Martin could see that slow, bewildered blink. Jesus fucking Christ. "Throw a fastball."
Andrei brought the ball and glove together at his waist, raised them slowly over his head, took a step, and threw. The ball came out in a three-quarters arm slot and didn't look half bad, but when the ball hit the mitt, the mystery behind Andrei Dinescu's sudden appearance in a Stars' uniform only thickened.
Martin didn't need Tater to tell him the pitch hadn't broken eighty, but the pitching coach called out, "Seventy-two."
"Hey, Andrei," Martin called out. "Not your curveball. I want your fastball."
"That is a fastball," Andrei said, hanging his head, his black hair curtaining his face again.
"Oh, okay…" Martin said. He glanced back at Tater and mouthed, What the fuck?
The Stars' pitching coach wouldn't meet Martin's gaze.
Martin threw the ball back. Andrei caught it somewhat clumsily. He didn't just sound like someone who had never seen the game played; he looked like it, too.
"Okay, uh, throw some more fastballs then," Martin said.
Andrei threw twenty-four more pitches. Not one of them broke seventy-five. His control was good, and he threw strikes, but a seventy-five-mile-per-hour fastball, even in the minor leagues, was laughable. The average velocity for the old number one in Triple-A clocked in at least ninety-two or ninety-three. In the bigs, it was more like ninety-five. It didn't make any goddamn sense.
Martin got up after the last pitch. "We're done here," he said to Tater and jogged over to Andrei. The Stars' pitching coach vacated the bullpen like his ass was on fire.
Andrei held out the ball as Martin neared. "I am tired. I will throw faster soon."
Martin accepted the ball, a mix of sympathy and apprehension churning in his mind. "Hey, you just got in. Travel can knock the shit out of you, I know. Get some rest, and we'll work on some stuff in your next bullpen." Like somehow finding you an extra twenty miles-per-hour on your heater.
Andrei nodded and trudged off toward the bullpen door, leaving Martin holding the ball. He should head out and take batting practice. He was supposed to catch tonight, and he'd like to put the bat on the ball with authority for once, but as he left the bullpen, his feet carried him to Jorge Vasquez's office.
Coming November 25, 2022
Kevin David Anderson's NIGHT SOUNDS
Kindle edition is now available for pre-order.
"Viscerally horrifying on an elemental level."
—Theresa Halvorsen, author of River City Widows and Warehouse Dreams
"A barrage of short, tongue-in-cheek blasts of horror that hit like
a load of buckshot to a zombie's braincase…"
—Brian Asman, author of Man, Fuck This House
Frantic, hungry claws scraping against wood…
The whining of a drill as it grinds through bone…
The ravings of a lunatic amid the honking of gridlocked cars…
Agonized shrieks through the phone line, followed by the rending of flesh…
The hypnotic, deadly tones of a calliope on a warm summer night…
When the sun goes down and darkness claims the land…
When the silence descends, isolating the lonely, the desperate, the weak…
These are the
Night Sounds
you would hear, should you care to listen.
And just below it, if you strain your ears, you will hear
what the night sounds mask…
The sounds of human suffering,
the music of the night.