Migod. jl_williams, this one's for you.

[green_dreams]

Quotes are from the story, clipped to remove indicators of exactly who's being talked about.

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His eyes were wide open, staring blankly through the glass. He was still breathing and blinking, but not really there.

Great. Now what?

I experimented for a few minutes, slapped him on the cheek. Finally I found I could lure him through the door by taking his cigarettes and holding them out as bait. He walked like a sleepwalker, slow and shuffling, otherwise unresponsive.

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I said to him, "you been following us ever since? How'd you make that drive straight through? You have to have been up for like 50 hours now."

This seemed to take him by surprise, like he hadn't considered it.

"Eh, adrenaline, I guess. I ain't really been tired. The thrill of the hunt."

We drove in silence for a moment, saw red tail lights up ahead.

He said, "That, and those loud, piercing voices in my head..."

I said, "What kind of-"

His eyes exploded.

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It's called "John Dies At The End", it's at http://www.johndiesattheend.com/, and it's two parts splatter, three parts horror, one part road movie, and salted with just enough clumsy human that you can buy our protagonist. It reads like Lansdale without the bone-gritting crudity.

jl_williams, it doesn't have, I don't think, quite the diesel and grit you might like, but it's damn good.

Comments

[jl-williams.livejournal.com]

Nice. Bookmarked and pending a free hour or two. Thanks.

[torrain.livejournal.com]

The epilogue's a little fluffy, but the rest of it I liked a great deal.