Cheryl Mullenax: Necro Files: Two Decades of Extreme Horror

Dennis turned to Harvey, his heart racing. “Those guys …” He couldn’t finish what he was going to say.

“Are dead. Yes, I know that Mr. Hillman. I thought that’s what you liked.”

“I’m not gay,” Dennis said quickly. He wanted to get the hell out of here, but something kept him rooted to the spot.

“Of course not,” Harvey said. “Andy Wilkes, one of the dead men you see there, was very much into young men, though. Take a look at the other one. Surely you’ll recognize him.”

A spike of fear dripped down Dennis’s spine as he took another look at the bodies. One of the bodies was that of a fat middle-aged man with thinning gray hair. He looked familiar … vaguely familiar. He looked like the type of guy who’d be …

Dennis put a hand to his mouth to hold back the scream. “ Oh my God! That’s Carl Grossman !” His knees threatened to buckle and Dennis leaned against the wall.

“Yes, that’s Mr. Grossman. He was the supplier. Nice that we have all three of you here, don’t you think? Customer, supplier, and the manufacturer.”

Dennis looked at Harvey. He was shaking so badly. “Wh-wha-what are you talking about?”

Over the agonizing screams of the old woman on the screen, Harvey continued. “Almost twenty years ago my mother and son were kidnapped. My son was only eight years old. They were never found. I looked everywhere; the police, the FBI, they looked everywhere. I used every available resource I could. I became so obsessed with their disappearance that my wife left me. There was no sign my mother took my son and changed their identities. There were signs that they were taken against their will, though. A witness reported that on the last day they were seen, two men were observed talking to my mother and son at Alondra Park in Gardena. My mother was a very accommodating, very helpful woman. This same witness saw my mother and son walking with the two men out to the parking lot. Perhaps they told her they needed some kind of help. We’ll probably never know. Needless to say, they disappeared from that park. My mother’s car was found still parked there without a trace of them. Later, much later, about thirteen years ago while chasing down a lead, I came across this tape.” He motioned toward the TV screen. One of the masked men was cutting the old woman’s throat while another one forced a small boy, who appeared to be eight or nine years old, his face red and wet from crying, to watch.

“Don’t ask me where I got it,” Harvey continued. He reached into his slacks pocket and pulled out a gun. He pointed it at Dennis as he continued. “To make a long story short, I did more research and found out my son later died. He’d been held as a sex slave for a group of perverts and eventually ran away. He was so scarred, so traumatized, that he became insane. He was tracked down by this ring of pedophiles and perverts and again abused horribly for profit.” Harvey picked up Dennis’s rape tape from the top of the large screen TV. “ Your tape, Mr. Hillman. You have the only copy. My son’s suffering was made for your pleasure. You paid to watch my son suffer!”

“No!” Dennis said. “I swear, I didn’t!”

Harvey’s face was twisted with rage and grief. “I’ve waited a long time for this … to get back at the people responsible for this … this filth ! It took me years to track down Carl Grossman, but I did. I got him, and I got the bastard who killed my son, and now I’ve got the sonofabitch who paid for it.” He pointed the gun at Dennis.

“Please …” Dennis stammered. “Y-Y-you don’t want to … to … d-d- do this !”

“Sure I do,” Harvey said, his grief suddenly as gone as fast as it came, his face erupting into a sick smile and then he pulled the trigger.

The.38 caliber slug tore into Dennis’s head, ejecting brain and bone into the wall behind him. The force of the shot propelled Dennis back and he slumped against the wall, eyes opened and glazed. Harvey watched as Dennis’s dead body rolled over and beat a convulsive tattoo on the carpeted floor before finally stopping.

Harvey knelt down and felt for Dennis’s pulse. Except for the dwindling sound of the dying woman’s screams coming from the snuff film on the TV, the house was silent.

Harvey grinned. He felt good. Wonderful. He never thought it would have felt so great, so fulfilling, so powerful! He stood up and replaced the revolver in his front pants pocket. He turned the VCR off with the remote control and rewound the tape and began making preparations for the owner of the house to arrive. According to his research, they were due back home in about three hours. Harvey had already set up all the video cameras at strategic places in the house, and he would turn all of them on with one flick of the remote when it was showtime. Then, he would wait for them to walk in and welcome them home, all four of them: mother, father, two adorable kids. Then they’d have some fun. He was looking forward to it now that he’d gotten warmed up. And getting warmed up was important. He’d gone through this stage with Carl, Alan, and Dennis to make sure he had the stomach for it. It was one thing to watch this shit everyday for the past twenty years; it was quite another to actually cross the line and do it.

Marveling at how well his fabricated story about his mother and son had gone over with Dennis Hillman, Harvey Panozzo made sure all the weapons were ready. Then he sat down in the darkened living room and waited.

“Meathouse Man” © Damon Knight, 1976, copyright renewed in 2004. © 2004 by George R.R. Martin. Originally published in Orbit 18, 1976. Reprinted by permission of the author.

“Night They Missed the Horror Show” © Joe R. Lansdale, 1988. Originally published in Silver Scream , 1988. Reprinted by permission of the author.

“Diary” © Ronald Kelly, 1990. Originally published in Cemetery Dance #3, 1990. Reprinted by permission of the author.

“Abed” © Elizabeth Massie, 1992. Originally published in Still Dead , 1992. Reprinted by permission of the author.

“I am He that Liveth and was Dead … & Have the Keys of Hell & Death” (an excerpt from Duet for the Devil , 2000) © Randy Chandler and t. Winter-Damon, 1992. Originally published in Grue No. 14, Summer 1992. Reprinted by permission of the author.

“Xipe” © Edward Lee, 1993. Originally published in The Barrelhouse: Excursions into the Unknown , Winter 1993. Reprinted by permission of the author.

“Bait” © Ray Garton, 1993. Originally published in Cemetery Dance , Fall 1993, Volume 5 Number 3/4. Reprinted by permission of the author.

“Painfreak” © Gerard Houarner, 1994. Originally published in Into the Darkness #1, April 1994. Reprinted by permission of the author.

“Lover Doll” © Wayne Allen Sallee, 1994. Originally published in Little Deaths , 1994. Reprinted by permission of the author.

“The Spirit Wolves” © Charlee Jacob, 1995. Originally published in Into the Darkness #4, 1995. Reprinted by permission of the author.

“Godflesh” © Brian Hodge, 1995. Originally published in The Hot Blood Series: Stranger By Night , 1995. Reprinted by permission of the author.

“Every Last Drop” © John Everson, 1998. Originally published in Bloodsongs , Spring 1998. Reprinted by permission of the author.

“Blind in the House of the Headsman” © Mehitobel Wilson, 2001. Originally published in Brainbox 2: Son of Brainbox , 2001. Reprinted by permission of the author.

“An Experiment in Human Nature” © Monica J. O’Rourke, 2001. Originally published in The Rare Anthology , 2001. Reprinted by permission of the author.