In Laymon's Terms

Soon hot urine dribbled down his legs and onto the carpet. Simon wanted to move his hands, to try to fight with her. But his arms wouldn’t comply with his brain. Instead, he whimpered.

“I hoped that you wouldn’t recognize her face,” Sherry continued. “But I really messed her face good, so I didn’t think there was any chance of that. Same with her body...Lord knows you got to know that well.”

“W...why,” he breathed. He wanted to say more, but didn’t have the air in his lungs.

Still, she knew what he had meant.

“I just wanted to have fun. Play a game with you. Some might call it sick. I call it genius. I can’t believe you fell for the notes. I mean, who the fuck would know what I was going to wear before I was going to do it?” She chuckled. “Me! That’s who.”

Sherry looked him deep in the eyes. “Plus I wanted you to see just what sort of woman you cheated on. What sort of body you gave up. All for that...that whore. And the best part is, it looks like it was all you. Your fingerprints and yours only are on the murder weapon. Your fingerprints are all over the dead woman’s body. And your fingerprints are all over the suicide note.”

In a flash of movement so sudden that Simon didn’t see before it was too late, Sherry stuffed the barrel into his mouth.

“Not to mention you have reason to kill yourself.” She then blew his brains out through his head.

As the machete fell to the floor and Simon was sent flying backwards, Sherry laughed. “Didn’t I tell you to close your fucking mouth?”

She watched as Simon crashed to the lounge room floor, then hurried into the bedroom. She had to act quickly.

The first thing she did was to slip on the black gloves that she had hidden inside the bedside drawer. Then she had the freedom to get dressed and gather up her bag. She picked up the rumpled note and stuffed it into her bag. Then she closed the closet door, grinning as she did, and dashed out the room. Running through the kitchen, Sherry stopped to collect the second note, then hurried into the lounge.

She rubbed the gun thoroughly before wrapping Simon’s right hand around the handle, then placed it where she guessed the gun would’ve dropped if Simon had been holding it. The last thing she did was to place the suicide note on the coffee table. She wandered over to Simon and crouched down.

“May God have mercy on your pitiful soul,” Sherry said. “You pervert.”

She stood up, took off the gloves and shoved them into her bag, along with the first note. She threw the bag to the couch then rushed to the phone.

She plugged the cord back into the socket, then picked up the receiver and called the police.

Sebastien Pharand

EN YEARS AGO, I found an old tattered copy of a book called The Cellar in a used bookstore. I had never heard of Richard Laymon, but was intrigued by the cover. I got home, sat down in my reading chair and began reading the book. To my complete surprise, five or six hours later, I had completely finished it and was amazed at the slur of emotions it made me feel. The book was scary, bold, bloody, violent, and darkly funny. It gave me a whole new perspective on horror fiction.

It is Richard Laymon who made me want to become a horror writer. I have been a constant reader of his ever since that long-ago evening and I know that I’ll keep coming back to his stories the moment I need a good scare. Richard Laymon is a writer who will greatly be missed by me, by his fans, and (maybe most importantly) by the horror genre itself.

Sebastien Pharand

HE MAN STOOD AT his window, his shotgun pointing at nothing into the moonlit night. He couldn’t see them just yet. But they were out there, hiding from him, playing with him. He kept his gun aimed toward the forest that besieged his house, waiting for them to show their ugly little faces. He’d be ready for them this time. Ready to shoot every single last one of those little fuckers. And then maybe, if he was able to get every single last one of them, he’d finally be able to get some shut-eye. He would sleep without troubles for the first time in months.

As he kept his gun erected toward the dark lawn below him, the man actually did smile, sensing that the freedom he had sought for such a long time was just around the corner.

Mark pulled on his brother’s arm. “Come on, squirt! Hurry it up, will ya! We don’t got all night.”

“I’m tired, Mark. Why do you want to go to the woods for?”

“’Cause we can.” He let go of his brother’s arm and accelerated his pace, hoping that Billy would hurry along and follow him.