Flypaper Con: Dark Psychological Thriller - Book 4 Page 2

  Nick thumbed down to the list of DawkinsCon official rules. “Why can’t they light me on fire?”

  Corpse stared at him, looking as confused as a baby in a topless bar.

  He caught her quizzical expression. “Not that I want to be set on fire, I just wonder why they drew a line there.”

  “Oh.” She looked up at the digital readout. Floor nine and counting. “It’s out of deferment to Danielle, if you can believe it. Matron Saint of the Maggots. Apparently setting you on fire was her thing.”

  Nick sighed. He still twinged in places when Danielle came up, though it had lessened somewhat. “Holy mother, do I have some screwed up fans or what?”

  “And how, Bro Jackson.” The elevator arrived at the twelfth floor and the doors opened. Corpse stepped off and scanned the convenient directional sign on the wall. “Our rooms are this way.”

  Nick walked down the bright and stark white hallway, trusting Corpse to lead the way and not let him walk into anything while he read over the DawkinsCon rules.

  No grievous injuries that may result in death… No fire (RIP Flypap3r)… No Dawkins work re-creations (RIP MaggotMaestro)… Points awarded for creativity, originality, level of impact… Points determined by panel of non-participant Maggots… Good luck, have fun.

  Nick handed Corpse her phone back. “Wow, when were you going to tell me about this?”

  “Like I said, it happened overnight. I didn’t see it until about an hour ago and you were asleep. Figured I’d tell you when we got here and settled.” Corpse held up her keycard. “This is me.”

  Nick’s brain clicked. “Wait, I was asleep, you were driving. You were reading all this while driving?”

  Corpse slid her card through the reader on the door. A red light turned green and she pushed it open. “I get bored while driving, is that a crime?”

  He nodded. “Yeah. Pretty sure that’s a crime.”

  “Meh.” She handed Nick his key card. “Next room over, buddy.”

  “Right. I just need a minute to get not totally shitty-looking and check in with Blaire. Then I’ll come grab you?”

  Corpse leaned on the door frame. “Sounds like a plan, Stan. What’s up first?”

  “Fucking interviews.” He adjusted his shoulder strap again and leaned on his cane. “There’s one or two I’m looking forward to, but I’m sure the rest will be a total beating. I think I’d rather go back into the lobby blindfolded with a bull’s-eye on my chest.”

  Corpse made a faux-serious face and rubbed her chin. “As your bodyguard, I would advise against that.”

  Nick walked to the next door over. “Not my bodyguard.”

  Corpse called back to him as she closed her door. “Still totes your bodyguard.”

  He slid his card through its reader. As the light on the door turned green, his phone dinged at him. He pulled it from his jacket pocket.

  Text from Blaire: Heard you’re here. Meet me downstairs as soon as you’re ready for interviews?

  Nick dropped his laptop bag on the bed and collapsed next to it.

  A day-long car ride, followed by a weekend of interviews, signings, a Q and A panel, and topped off with a charity dinner. Now, in addition to an already burgeoning schedule, he had this DawkinsCon business to contend with.

  What in the shitting hell had he been thinking?

  Chapter 3

  Blaire Coutrice led Nick and Corpse into a small room near the convention hall. A couple of large lights and a camera were focused on two chairs in front of a backdrop of a stormy sky. “I know these things aren’t your favorite, and that’s one of the reasons I slated it first. After this and the signing, the only super stressful thing you have left is the Q and A tomorrow.”

  Nick couldn’t tell if she was sarcastic or obtuse. “You’re kidding, right?”

  His agent and publicist showed as many of her altogether too white teeth as she could manage. “Well, the only super stressful thing outside of this whole DawkinsCon business anyway. And I’m sure that’ll be fine. Kids and their pranks, you know.”

  Obtuse it was, then. “Remember that time one of those silly kids pranked Corpse with a handgun in my living room? Good times.”

  Corpse pulled open the collar of her shirt, exposing her shoulder. “I have a bitchin’ scar. Wanna see?”

  Blaire’s perpetual smile dropped. Nick had only seen it fall a handful of times over the years, usually in situations like this where he’d told some talking head to perform physically impossible sexual acts upon themselves. Corpse had managed it in two seconds flat. The girl was good. Blaire turned her nose up. “No, thank you.”

  Corpse pulled her collar back into place. “Suit yourself, but you’re missing out. If you squint at it just right, it looks like Rainn Wilson.”

  Nick winked at her, fully aware of how bananas this line of conversation would make Blaire. “You think everything looks like Rainn Wilson.”

  “No, Rainn Wilson just so happens to look like everything.” She contained her laugh, but Nick knew her well enough to know that, on the inside, she was in stitches. They both were.

  Blaire did the only sensible thing and ignored their shenanigans. “How are you feeling? Good? Pleasant and approachable?”

  Nick rubbed his eyes. “Tired. But tired-indifferent, not tired-cranky.”

  The agent looked at her watch. “I can’t believe you guys drove all the way here from Forest Down. You should have flown.”

  Corpse put her hands behind her back and kicked at the floor.

  Nick nodded in her direction. “Sadly, not an option when half of your entourage is a wanted felon. But them’s the brakes.”

  Blaire held up a sheet of paper and flapped it through the air noisily. “So anyway, this is the press release about the new book. Everyone who comes through here has received a copy, but they’re under an NDA until the big reveal tomorrow. Now, the DawkinsCon thing is new, do you want me to tell them it’s off limits?”

  “You know, I hadn’t even thought about it.” Nick tapped a finger on his cane and lowered his voice. “The one thing I don’t like to talk about is Danielle.”

  “Right, and they know that.” Blaire checked her watch again.

  “If they ask about DawkinsCon and Myiasis in general, she’s bound to come up. It’s a hop and a skip between the two. They’re almost inseparable topics.” He threw his hand into the air. “Fuck it. Anything goes. Nothing off limits.”

  Corpse and Blaire looked at one another. Corpse found her voice first, of course. She processed everything in a fraction of the time it took anyone else. “Wow, seriously?”

  Blaire fanned out her meticulously manicured fingers. “Nothing? Not even Danielle?”

  Nick fanned out his cuticle bitten fingers in response. “Nah, whatever. It’s all too much. Basically I can say, no Danielle, no DawkinsCon, no Munchausen Mom for that matter, and then what? That’s been my life for however long now. All that’s left is the book. So what then? I’m here to do nothing but shill books? I don’t want to be that guy.” He motioned at the door and moved for his chair. “So yeah, tell them anything goes. My ass is hanging out this whole weekend anyway, may as well go Full Monty.”

  Blaire clapped her hands together. “Well, if nothing else, it’s bound to make for really good press. I think this is a smart play. Be yourself, but try not to ‘Donny and Spitz’ anybody.” She moved for the door, but then stopped and turned around. “You know there’s no smoking in the hotel, right?” She hadn’t forgotten the time Nick lit a radio morning show’s trashcan aflame with a well-aimed butt. Neither had Nick. It was one of his proudest moments.

  He raised two fingers. “No smoking, scout’s honor.”

  Blaire gave him a thumbs-up and left the room.

  He wiggled his fingers anxiously. “That said, boy do I need a fuckin’ cig.”

  “You ain’t kidding.” Corpse tapped Nick on the shoulder and stuffed a stick of nicotine gum in his mouth. “Hey boss, I didn’t want to say anything in front of Smiley
McPlastic, but you sure you’re up for this? I’ve never heard you talk about Danielle, and a few months ago we went to war with people for digging into your mom.”

  He rubbed his hands down his face and chewed the stress from his body. “I know. Believe me. But I’m tired of being on guard about every major thing in my life. It’s exhausting. This will be like… what do they call it? Exposure therapy. And then it’ll all be out there. No more secrets.”

  Corpse nodded. “You’re the boss, boss. But if you want me to pummel anyone, the code word is ‘chimichangas’.”

  He nodded one single, definitive nod. “Deal.”

  She blew a bubble, popped it, and gobbled it back into her maw. “You should have let me bring my bat.”

  “You won’t need your bat.” Nick expended his nervous energy by thumping his cane on the floor next to his chair. It helped to a degree.

  The publicity parade began in earnest.

  A woman from a popular horror magazine—virtually the last of its kind—was first. She was genial and lobbed what Nick would consider ‘softball questions’.

  “Your new book is called God Complex. What can you tell us about that?”

  This was the easy stuff—the stuff Nick had rehearsed in his head knowing he’d be called upon to recite it several times over the next forty-eight hours. “It’s about a dude who realizes he’s God and the entire universe is his imagination running away with itself. So he takes control and begins to envision some pretty horrible things for the world. Alternately, it’s about a dude having a psychotic break.”

  The horror magazine woman followed up with the usual, “What inspired this particular book?”

  Another softball. “I had a moment a while back where I decided I wanted to write something just for me. Not worry so much how it would be received. And I like darkly funny grotesque stuff, so this story was an opportunity to do something a little like, you know, modern off-the-wall Lovecraft. I had a lot of fun with it.”

  A Canadian horror blogger was next. It was true what they said about Canadians; by and large the politest people. He wanted something more than the usual fluff, but wouldn’t pry too deep out of courtesy. “If you could sum up the past year of your life, and your experiences with the Myiasis community, what would you say?”

  Nick had to respect it. It delved into the juicier stuff, but allowed Nick to do so on his own terms, within his own comfort level. That was Canada.

  “My personal experiences with the Myiasis community have been… well, pretty fucked up. But I don’t know, that could be a ‘bad apple spoils the bunch’ situation. I saw a lot of people wearing red flies in the lobby and not one of them tried to murder me. One girl put a sticker on my suitcase. If that’s as invasive as she ever gets into my personal life, she and I are square. As a general rule, I really only have a problem with the ones who invade my home or cause harm to the people of Forest Down, eh?” He couldn’t help himself. He had to add the ‘eh’.

  A tabloid television bottom feeder followed. Blaire insisted the show’s ratings were worth the hassle. Granted, that was before Nick took the brakes off the cart. “Tell us about the night Danielle Johnson died.”

  Nick’s stomach knotted. Of course these assholes didn’t play around.

  Corpse leaned into his ear. “Are you hungry? Do you need something to eat? A deep-fried burrito, perhaps?”

  He waved her off with a grateful smirk. “I’m fine, thank you.”

  The night Danielle died. He remembered every detail, even the ones he didn’t want to.

  He leaned forward, his hand under his chin. “You must feel like you’ve won the lottery. I haven’t spoken about that night with anyone on the record. Ever.”

  The tabloid woman let slip a self-satisfied grin. “We’re eager to share your story with our viewers if you are.”

  This was where Nick would normally go off the rails and unleash some nasty bon mots in a profane tirade that would solve nothing, but would at least blow the smile off the offending party’s face. Not this time. Interesting experiment: talk about it. Let the cut-rate Diane Sawyer have her day.

  “I didn’t know Danielle very well. But man… she was something else. Smart. Funny.” He trailed off. He savored these rare moments when he could picture her the way he preferred, in those first couple of days.

  But this woman wanted to know about the night Danielle died. Not the days she lived.

  “She had gotten a little intense. Kinda scary. So I tried to end things. It didn’t go well. She tased me. Knocked me cold. I woke up in her car covered in… something flammable, I don’t know what.” A lump swelled up in Nick’s throat. He coughed it back. “She’d glued her hand to mine. And we were on railroad tracks… a train coming down the way.”

  Nick lifted his scarred left hand so the tabloid woman could see. Her eyes widened, with either shock or the salivation of the story she’d stumbled upon. It didn’t matter which. “She set the both of us on fire. I got out of the car—tried to pull her with me. But I failed and she was killed.”

  Saying it out loud flicked a light switch in Nick’s head. It was a dim light; he couldn’t be sure what it had illuminated just yet, but it was there, and warranted further exploration when he had a half minute to himself.

  He looked the tabloid woman in the eyes and said the last thing he’d have expected when she first sat down. “Thank you.”

  She looked even more shocked than when Nick had shown her his hand. “What for?”

  Nick squinted at her. “I don’t know yet, but I’ll figure it out.”

  Minutes later, a cheap Joe Bob Briggs wannabe from a cable channel asked Nick if God Complex was an apology to his fans for his last book, “That steaming turd, Love Scars and Marks.” Nick responded by swinging his cane at the man’s head and cursing his children’s children with anal warts the size of golf balls.

  Corpse kicked the guy in the ass on his way out for good measure and called for the final interviewer.

  Blaire showed in a young woman with black hair, clothing to match, and the reddest lips this side of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. The woman extended a hand to Nick. “I’m unbelievably happy to finally meet you. I’m Hellen.”

  If facial expressions made sounds, Corpse’s face would’ve been a needle dragging across a record. “Shit strudel on crackers, what the fuck are you doing here? Nick. Chimichangas. Say ‘chimichangas’. Say it, say it, don’t be a pussy. Say it and I’ll beat this bitch so hard—”

  Nick placed a hand on Corpse’s head with a loving ‘down boy’ pat before he stood up and shook Hellen’s hand. “Corpse, it’s okay, I put her on the list. You know we’ve been talking.” He bobbed his head between the two. “Corpse, Hellen. Hellen, Corpse. You two play nice.”

  Hellen reached for Corpse’s hand. “No hard feelings, please? You know I’m sorry about calling you a—you know.”

  Corpse sneered. “Cunt.”

  Hellen smiled sheepishly. “Yes, that was it.”

  The webmaster took the podcaster’s hand and squeezed. “No. I’m straight up calling you a—”

  Nick interjected. “Okay then, all friends, good deal. Let’s get started.” He sat down and Hellen sat in the chair across from him. Corpse stood nearby, her arms crossed.

  Hellen pulled a recorder out of her pocket. “So. I was more than a little shocked when you asked me to do this.”

  Nick shook his head. “You shouldn’t have been. We’ve talked a few times, we’re good. Ish. Right?”

  Corpse scoffed.

  Hellen motioned at her. “I get it, you know. Of course. What we—I’ll put it all on the table. Worm and I acted unacceptably. I apologize to you, Corpse, personally, for the deck. I admit, that was my idea, but I never intended to hurt anyone. When it went that way, I fought against it. Maybe not hard enough. My relationship with Wormwood was not… healthy. I wasn’t in a good place. It was what it was, and I’m sorry.”

  Silence.

  Nick didn’t care for the quiet. He drove i
t from the room. “Well. If it matters, I asked you here because I listen to your new cast and think you’ve got a brilliant mind for horror. The fact that we have a bizarre history is secondary. So, whatever you want, ask away.”

  Hellen raised a finger. “The new book. God Complex.”

  Nick sat up, his interest piqued. “You want to ask me about the new book? Really? You can ask me anything and that’s where you go?”

  “Is that not okay?”

  Nick wore his exuberance on his sleeve. “It’s great. It’s refreshing, especially considering your old cast was the one that broke the story on my mom. What do you want to know?”

  She held the recorder up. “It’s a story with a theme of insanity, or at least the possibility of insanity.”

  He nodded. “Correct.”

  “Do you think you centralized this latest story around a crazy person because you’ve had so much exposure to mental illness, particularly in the past year?”

  Nick sat back in his chair. “See, this is why you’re here. That’s a good question. Yes and no. Yes, that sort of thing has been on my mind a lot. How could it not be? A few months ago, I met a guy who wanted to wear my skin as a loincloth, and another guy with a predilection for Nickburgers. But, on the ‘no’ side, I’ve always had a fascination with mental illness. That goes way back.”

  Hellen put a long, black nail to her lips. “Like back to your mother?” She paused. “I’m sorry, can I ask that? You said anything.”

  He smiled. “It’s fine, that’s a legit line of questioning. I’d have been disappointed if you didn’t go there. But no, it goes back before I ever knew she had Munchausen’s. I was watching crazy people in horror movies as a wee tyke.”

  The podcaster appeared intrigued. “First one you remember?”

  “Halloween.” Nick gripped his cane. His heart raced, and for once—for once—it wasn’t because he was scared for his life. “That Loomis speech about Michael Myers.”

  Hellen leaned forward. “Which one? The one about the six year-old boy with the Devil’s eyes?”