Necro Files: Two Decades of Extreme Horror

She has also written one non-fiction book The Goth Bible: A Compendium for the Darkly Inclined (St. Martin’s Press), and has edited ten anthologies, the latest (from Edge SF&F Publishing) being a horror/dark fantasy anthology Tesseracts Thirteen (co-edited with David Morrell, 2009), Evolve: Vampire Stories of the New Undead (www.vampires-evolve.com , 2010), Evolve Two: Vampire Stories of the Future Undead (August 2011). A new anthology is in the works.

For Brainstorm Comics, she scripted three of her short stories in VampErotica #5, 6, and 13 and these comics and stories combine with interviews to create the graphic novel Nancy Kilpatrick’s Vampyre Theater, out in 2011. You can find out the latest about Nancy on her webpage www.nancykilpatrick.com and follow her on facebook.

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Ecstasy came out of my perception of how far some people will go to be loved.

The world, it seems, is bound for hell. You grip the hand basket tighter, holding onto your life.

This is the first time you have come for him, and that unnerves you. With luck you will find him. With more luck, you won’t. Either way, intuition implies you are not in a good position, despite what you now believe.

Everywhere you turn, white light assaults your eyes as if it were the white-light tunnel of death instead of moonlight glinting knife blade sharp off snow. Harsh air forces you to pull inward, shrinking back to yourself, shriveling, becoming smaller to hide from the cold. Nowhere you have been was the environment this inhospitable to human survival, although you realize other places on the planet are worse. Still, you haven’t been there and, in the midst of this trauma your cells suffer in anticipation of freezing to death, speculation seems pointless.

You have searched this city for hours with this lanky sexy prostitute by your side. Together you visited places where Kevin has been seen. Inquiries here, there, his identity verified by photo, all painting a fresh trail, or so your companion assures you. “Listen, Fran,” Didi said at the last transvestite bookstore, your name on his crimson lips sounding far too intimate, “we’ll find him. There are only so many places a broken boy can hide.” That was many hours ago. Between then and now: dozens of taxi rides taken, club entrance fees paid, drinks bought in bars, seedy hotel clerks questioned, meals eaten and coffees drunk in greasy-spoons and diners frequented by she-males as Kevin likes to identify himself. You are not naive; this world is not the one you glide through ordinarily, yet it is not entirely alien. So many personas, each in its own way demanding love and acceptance. How you envy their seduction techniques; how they terrify you.

The last club was in the middle of a ghetto and as you left it, once again, you congratulated yourself that you only paid this pretty hustler a fraction of the promised money—he will make efforts to keep you unharmed to get the rest. “Listen, sweetie, taxis won’t answer calls to this neighborhood we’re going,” Didi assured you. “We’ll hike it. Just you and me, romping through the snow!” Said with a Madonna toss-ofthe-head and a devilish sparkle to almond-eyes. That he plays with you, laughs at your expense does not bother you. Since long before Kevin’s treatments began, before his breasts swelled and his voice rose an octave and his body hair thinned, all of it leading to “the change” as he calls it, you have been to hell and back many times. Nothing bothers you anymore. Except for one thing. The nightmare.

This northern city’s mean winter streets leave you hopeless. Life does not exist here in the dead of a cold night. No one sane walks around at 3 a.m. The last vehicle to pass inspired a fantasy of jumping in front of the bumper and pleading with the driver, “Take me home! I just want to go home!” But there is no home, not anymore. Mother is gone. Father was too often there. Kevin is all you have. You do not even care that your baby brother is becoming your baby sister. You just want to find him before, as the nightmare leaves you feeling, things have gone too far.

Hands and feet half frozen, you finally reach a wide street, but you are so far from downtown that here it is deserted, of people, vehicles, shops. Life has ended, or so it seems. What must it be like in daylight? You shudder to think about the corruption that will be exposed when the ice melts. Now, a ridge of danger lingers, danger and desolation, two emotions that, combined, combust and leave a raw scar from a wound that runs deep to the marrow. A wound you have suffered. A scar you still possess. You know it is the same with Kevin.