PRAISE FOR JOHN EVERSON!
THE PUMPKIN MAN
“With The Pumpkin Man, John Everson carves his name into the list of great horror writers. This is a deliciously creepy novel!”
—Jonathan Maberry, multiple Bram Stoker Award–winning author of The Wolfman
“John Everson’s The Pumpkin Man is a fresh look at one of my favorite subjects, urban legends. Fast-paced, gory fun that is perfect for a chilly autumn night.”
—James A. Moore, author of Blood Red
“Robert Bloch lives! John Everson’s The Pumpkin Man is a lean, mean, supernatural thriller in the best tradition of Bloch and Matheson. The story of a grieving daughter prying open the shriveled gourds of her past, Everson’s book yanks the reader along by the nape of the neck—and also, unexpectedly, by the heart—into a dark territory best traveled in a well-lighted room, with a guard on duty. Great stuff!”
—Jay Bonansinga, National Bestselling Author of Perfect Victim
“John Everson brings something new and edgy to the genre. It’s like reading a killer rock record.”
—Paperback Horror
“A creepy, sharply written grisly tale that will make you think twice about the jack-o-lanterns you see in your neighborhood this coming Halloween.”
—Famous Monsters of Filmland
“. . . One of the best horror writers that is out there.”
—The Horror Review
“Everson consistently offers creepy, gothic settings, disturbing kill scenes, plenty of thrills, and writing that’s more addictive than crack.”
—Horror Fiction Review
“John Everson has guts, and clearly likes to explore and tamper with boundaries. He is a good enough writer that he can get away with murder, as well as multitudes of morbid mayhem.”
—Hellnotes
SIREN
“. . . A richly lyrical and melancholic meditation on loss and desperate yearning. Also a superbly effective exercise in soul-ripping terror. Modern horror doesn’t get much better than this.”
—Bryan Smith, author of The Dark Ones
“John Everson hits one out of the park and into deep water! Siren is as wicked a tale of intense sexual obsession as any you’re likely to read, and it’ll definitely make you afraid—very afraid—of the water.”
—W. D. Gagliani, Author of Wolf’s Gambit
“. . . A twisted fable of lust and obsession—with a very salty finish.”
—Amber Benson, author of Death’s Daughter
“John Everson went to the darkest part of the subconscious to create a tale of terror that will leave you haunted, days after the last page is read.”
—Brian Yount, Doorways
Scream Queens love Siren, too!
“A thoroughly engaging tale . . . Everson’s excellent prose and vivid storytelling riff on the depths of obsession and sexual addiction.”
—Brinke Stevens, horror movie actress
“Tautly sensual, obsessively dangerous, this siren will get under your skin . . . with her teeth!”
—Christa Campbell, actress
“It was as if I was under a siren’s call myself. I had to read John Everson’s Siren in one sitting to get to the unexpected, chilling ending.”
—Amy Lynn Best, director and star of Splatter Movie: The Director’s Cut
THE FACE WITHIN
The knives were relentless. Always the carver dipped his knife into the model, sampling the essence of the man with his blade, drawing something of him into his tool. Then he moved his fingers to the pumpkin and slid the wet blade into the hard shell, carving the image of the man into the gourd with the man’s blood as lubricant and his lost soul as the bridge between flesh and portrait. The carver cut first with a long, curved edge, outlining the form, marking the way. Then he set the opener to the side and refined the incision with a tiny wire-thin implement: a shaper. His hands moved back and forth from pumpkin to knife kit in a blur. Time was short.
Some blades were hooked, with edges on both sides. Others stabbed. Still others shaved. But they all worked together to reveal the face beneath the surface. Piece by piece, the face of the victim took shape.
Other books by John Everson:
Covenant
Sacrifice
The 13th
Siren
THE PUMPKIN MAN
John Everson
For Shaun, who loves to help me carve the pumpkins.
Copyright © 2011 by John Everson
All rights reserved.
Acknowledgments
There’s something about those old urban legends that you hear in grammar school that stick with you for life—like the slumber party dare of repeating “Bloody Mary” three times in front of a dark mirror to tempt the evil Mary Worth to appear and scratch out your eyes. The Pumpkin Man began as an original short story of the same name about kids who come face-to-face with just such an urban legend. (Thanks to Mort Castle for publishing it in Doorways magazine!) The tale set the stage for a very different novel a few years later about events set a couple decades in the future. But both takes on The Pumpkin Man were inspired by those spooky stories that haunt your childhood dreams.
The novel owes its setting to my continuing love affair with the Northern California coast. I was lucky enough to spend quite a few days there right at the start of writing it, thanks to a couple business trips I took to San Francisco. Some of the landscape behind The Pumpkin Man comes from a late 2009 drive I took up to Jenner and a brief stay at the Rio Villa Beach Resort in nearby Guerneville.
As always, music was my constant writing companion, and during this novel I leaned heavily on La Floa Maldita.
There are a thousand people I’d love to acknowledge for their support, and I can’t possibly list them all here, but I have to thank my wife, Geri, and my son, Shaun, for letting me disappear into dark places for hours on end, and my editors Shane Ryan Staley, Don D’Auria, Chris Keeslar, Dave Barnett, Roy Robbins and Mateusz Bandurski, who have all supported and issued editions of my novels.
Thanks also to my first readers: Paul Legerski, Martel Sardina, Erik Smith and Rhonda Wilson, for fixing so many of my fact and grammar gaffes in this manuscript. And a special thanks to some great people who have really gone beyond the call to support my work over the past couple years: Meli Denton, Colum McKnight, Jason R. Davis, P. S. Gifford, Lon Czarnecki, Dave Benton, W. D. Gagliani, Peter D. Schwotzer, Sarah Ham, Jamey Webb, Raymond Brown, Stephen McDornell, John Funderburg, Jonathan Maberry, Bryan Smith, Kresby, Jay Ford, Sheila Halterman, Deb Kuhn, Chris and Angie Fulbright, Damian Maffei, Mike Rankin, Lincoln Crisler, Peg Phillips and Sheila Mallec. You guys make all those long hours of trying to squeeze blood from a stone worth it.