Dead Harvest

  I'm fortunate be part of an online writing community whose members' friendship and support I value more than I've room here to express. I would, however, like to single out a few of them for championing my work these many years (with my apologies to anyone I've missed, as this list is certainly inadequate to so Herculean a task): Patti Abbott, Patrick Shawn Bagley, Nigel Bird, Paul D. Brazill, R. Thomas Brown and the fine folks at Crime Fiction Lover, Joelle Charbonneau, David Cranmer and his cohorts at Beat to a Pulp, Laura K. Curtis, Neliza Drew, David Dvorkin, Jacques Filippi, Allan Guthrie, Sally Janin, Fiona Johnson, Naomi Johnson, John Kenyon, Chris La Tray, Jennifer MacRostie, Erin Mitchell, Lauren O'Brien, Sabrina Ogden, Dan O'Shea, Keith Rawson and the guys at Crimefactory, Chris Rhatigan, Darren Sant, Kieran Shea, the whole Spinetingler Magazine crew, Julie Summerell, Steve Weddle and the rest of the Needle team, Chuck Wendig, and the inimitable Elizabeth A. White.

  I'd be remiss if I did not include a shout-out to the Cressey clan, fierce cheerleaders one and all. Thanks also to my family, who've not only supported my writing from the get-go, but have also given me no shortage of issues to work out in what one hopes are many books to come. (Kidding, family, kidding. Mostly.)

  And last, but certainly not least, thank you to my lovely wife Katrina: my best friend, my sounding board, my first editor and ideal reader. I never would have had the guts to put pen to paper had she not encouraged me to do so – and even if I'd somehow managed to, I guarantee the result would have been nowhere near as good. Any mistakes contained herein are no doubt my own, but if ever you find I've stumbled onto a fleeting moment of grace, you now know who to thank.

Extras

Chapter One from

The Wrong Goodbye

The Collector: Book 2

Rain tore through the canopy of leaves, soaking my clothes until they hung wet and heavy on my limbs but doing little to dispel the fetid stench of decay that pervaded every inch of this godforsaken place.

  Just keep moving, I told myself. It's not far now.

  Mud sucked at my shoes as I pressed onward, swinging my machete at the knot of vegetation that barred my way. The roar of the rain against the leaves was deafening, swallowing the noises of the jungle until they were little more than a distant radio signal, halfheard beneath the waves of static. Heavy sheets of falling water obscured my vision, reducing my entire world to three square feet of vines and trees and rotting leaves. I swear, that dank jungle stink was enough to make me gag. Then again, that could've been the corpse that I was wearing.

  See, I'm what they call a Collector. I collect the souls of the damned, and ensure they find their way to hell. Believe me when I tell you, it ain't the most glamorous of jobs, but it's not like I really have a choice. Back in '44, I was collected myself, after a bad bit of business with a demon and a dying wife. I didn't know it at the time, of course, but this gig of mine was my end of the bargain. Most folks think of hell as some far-off pit of fire and brimstone, but the truth is it's all around them, a hair's breadth from the world that they can see – always pressing, testing, threatening to break through. That hell is where I spend my days, collecting soul after corrupted soul, all in service of a debt I can never repay.

  Which brings me to Colombia, and to the dead guy I was wearing.

  One of the bitches about being a Collector is that even though you're stuck doing the devil's bidding for all eternity, your body's still six feet under, doing the ol' dust to dust routine. But a Collector can't exist outside a body, which leaves possession as our only option. Most Collectors choose to possess the living – after all, they're plentiful enough, and they come with all kinds of perks, like credit cards and cozy beds. You ask me, though, the living are more trouble than they're worth. They're always crying and pleading and yammering on – or even worse, trying to wrestle control of their bodies back – and the last thing I need when I'm on a job is a backseat driver mucking everything up for me. That's why I stick to the recently dead.

  Take this guy, for example. I found him on a tip from my handler, Lilith, who handed me a clipping from a local paper when she gave me my assignment. "Honestly," she'd said, her beautiful face set in a frown, "I don't understand your morbid desire to inhabit the dead, when the living are so much more convenient and, ah, pleasant-smelling."

  "A living meat-suit doesn't sit right with me. It's kind of like driving a stolen car."

  "You're aware you're being sent there to kill someone, are you not?"

  "Yeah, only the folks I'm sent to kill need killing." I waved the article at her. "The hell's this thing say, anyway? I barely speak enough Spanish to find the restroom."