Necro Files: Two Decades of Extreme Horror

Vinnie and Pork jumped out of the way and watched the car make the bridge and go over the edge and disappear into the water with amazing quietness. Leonard, pulled by the weight of the car, rustled past them. When he hit the bridge, splinters tugged at his clothes so hard they ripped his pants and underwear down almost to his knees.

The chain swung out once toward the edge of the bridge and the rotten railing, and Leonard tried to hook a leg around an upright board there, but that proved wasted. The weight of the car just pulled his knee out of joint and jerked the board out of place with a screech of nails and lumber.

Leonard picked up speed and the chain rattled over the edge of the bridge, into the water and out of sight, pulling its connection after it like a pull toy. The last sight of Leonard was the soles of his bare feet, white as the bellies of fish.

“It’s deep there,” Vinnie said. “I caught an old channel cat there once, remember? Big sucker. I bet it’s over fifty-feet deep down there.”

They got in the truck and Vinnie cranked it.

“I think we did them boys a favor,” Pork said. “Them running around with niggers and what they did to that dog and all. They weren’t worth a thing.”

“I know it,” Vinnie said. “We should have filmed this, Pork, it would have been good. Where the car and that nigger lover went off in the water was choice.”

“Nah, there wasn’t any women.”

“Point,” Vinnie said, and he backed around and drove onto the trail that wound its way out of the bottoms.

Diary

Ronald Kelly

“Diary” was first published in Cemetery Dance magazine #3 in 1990.

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Ronald Kelly is the author of such Southern horror novels as Hindsight, Pitfall, Something Out There, Father’s Little Helper, The Possession, Fear, and Blood Kin. His audio collection, Dark Dixie: Tales of Southern Horror was nominated for a Grammy Award in 1992 for Best Spoken or Non-Musical Recording. His first short story collection, Midnight Grinding & Other Twilight Terrors, was published by Cemetery Dance Publications in 2009, and his latest novel, Hell Hollow, was released in 2010. His upcoming publications include Undertaker’s Moon, After the Burn, Cumberland Furnace & Other Fear-Forged Fables, and the Essential Ronald Kelly Collection.

He lives in Brush Creek, Tennessee with his wife and three young’uns.

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This was my first truly extreme horror story. Upon publication, Richard Chizmar of Cemetery Dance Magazine said “This tale is much darker and nastier than your typical Ronald Kelly story”, and he was right. I broke past some personal barriers, fiction-wise, with Diary and I haven’t let up since.

August 21

They want to know why I killed those people in Tennessee. They want to know why a no-account bum like Jerry Weller crossed paths with the All-American family and systematically tortured, raped, and slaughtered them, one by one. They seem very insistent for answers. But I give them none. I only counter their questions with questions of my own. Why did Satan drive me to commit such atrocities? Why did God allow such atrocities to take place?

They think they have me pegged. They brand me a violent psychopath and spout their psychiatric crap, but they’re still missing the point. If they weren’t so damned stupid, they would be able to look into my eyes and see the squirming, maggot-infested soul that lies decaying within.

You see, perversity is my forte.

It is normality that drives me insane.

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August 29

My parents didn’t tell me for a very long time that I once had a twin brother. When they did, they only said that he had died shortly after birth. I knew they were concealing all the gory details. Eventually, they told me the whole story … and, boy, was it a doozy!

It seems that there were once twin brothers named Jerry and Jamie. Shortly after their arrival home from the hospital, Mom and Dad went out for a night on the town, leaving the little ones in the care of teenaged babysitter Caroline. An hour later, Caroline’s beatnik boyfriend, Rodney, showed up with a big bag of goodies. There was much drinking and pot smoking and airplane glue sniffing. Soon, Caroline and Rodney had gotten wildly high and thought it would be incredibly funny to put little Jamie in the kitchen oven. They chug-a-lugged vodka and reds as they turned the flame to the max and cooked the squawling infant like a meatloaf.