In Laymon's Terms

For a short guy he had a loping gait. I tore ass and sprinted the twenty-five feet but the loss of blood was throwing me off. We got there at almost the same time, and he already had his hand on the gun.

I grabbed his wrist and was surprised at how strong the little bastard was. He nearly shrugged me off and we scuffled as the ghost town sighed and hissed and moaned around us. He knew some moves and worked at my ribs while I tried to get a hold of him. Skittering like a rat, Chuck could really slip and parry. He kicked the .32 aside and tried to swing the cleaver at me. I ducked aside and he chopped past my ear. I straight-armed him across his chest and the blade dropped. Chuck wheeled and went for the gun. I went for the cleaver.

This was it.

He spun and brought the .32 up towards my heart but he couldn’t pull the trigger. He stood there perfectly still, balanced on the balls of his feet and shivering slightly, with the cleaver bisecting his brain.

I’d slammed the blade down as hard as I could, and it had come to a stop directly between his eyes. He blinked once, and again, and the tip of his tongue jutted and flicked out across his bottom lip.

He was still standing when Mary and I got into the car. As I slowly drove off I kept looking in the rearview, waiting for him to drop, but he never did.

Almost an hour passed before either of us said anything.

“I lied before,” Mary told me. I tried not to be too distracted by her bare chest.

“About what?”

“I wasn’t a hitchhiker and they weren’t going to eat me. I was being punished.”

“Why?”

“For breaking the rules.”

“Which rules?”

“For saying I didn’t want to hurt your friend. I was hoping I could help him get his car started again and he could get me the hell out of here.”

It started to come together. “You were part of that Family. You were the bait.”

“Me and Rainbeaux. His car was dead though.”

“It was the fuel pump.”

“I’ve run away a couple of times but they always find me and bring me back. I’m sick of living out here, picking up stranded drivers and lost teenagers and turning them over to the Family. All this dust and those fuckin’ hippies playing the same damn songs on their guitars. You know they’re still protesting the Vietnam war. They don’t know any new tunes. They have nothing better to do.”

“Well, say goodbye to Masonville once and for all.”

She sat up straight as if I’d punched her in the belly. “Masonville?” She gave me an expression I couldn’t figure out, sad but sort of mocking too.

“It’s not Masonville. That sign at the start of town is all beat to crap. You misread it.”

“I did?”

“That’s Mansonville.”

Mansonville?

It stopped me. Chuck. Charles Jr. “You gotta be friggin’ kidding.”

Mary leaned back, beautiful and exquisite as we drove into the vanishing sun. She turned to look at me and my heart bucked again, and I thought this might work out all right. I’d met some of Monty’s backers and co-producers and I knew just what they were looking for.

“You ever wanted to be in pictures?” I asked.

Adam Pepper

HEN I JOINED the HWA, the website said, “Chapters active in New York, Chicago, Atlanta...” and I was excited by the prospects. Here I was, living in New York all my life, the literary hotbed of the world, and I hadn’t accomplished a thing. Sure, I’d sold a poem or two, a short here and there. But no one knew Adam Pepper. And just as important, Adam Pepper didn’t know anyone else.

I’ll be honest, when I sent an email to the Internet czar at the time, David Dvorkin, and he told me there was no active New York Chapter, I was annoyed. It was one of the reasons that I joined. But I was ambitious and very motivated to get my name out there, so I started the Chapter on my own. The first meeting I met some good folks, some established, some not. But once Jack Ketchum and Don D’Auria got on board, we were on our way.

After we had Don D’Auria as our guest of honor, I began to feel a little stupid. I wanted to have some T-shirts, or HWA trinkets to give my guests—make things look official. So I wrote to the powers that be. I started with Nancy E., then emailed all the bigwigs.

Richard Laymon wrote me back!

Not only did he promise to send me a bunch of T-shirts, but he signed the email, “Dick.”