Red Marillion E-Book

Wayne Kyle Spitzer

• Herausgeber: Wayne Kyle Spitzer
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

"You're gonna smoke it with me, aren't you, Vic?" he asked, following me.I stopped in the living room and kicked off my hiking boots."Huh, Vic? How about it?" He walked around me and plopped himself down on the couch, which was even greasier than the carpet, if that was possible. "It'll be just like old times."A towering, purple bong sat at his feet, ready to go. I sat down in the easy chair across from him, rubbing my temples.It's coming."Sure," I said, finally. "Just like old times."

Leseprobe

RED MARILLION

by

Wayne Kyle Spitzer

Table of Contents

Title Page

Red Marillion

Copyright © 1986, 2017 Wayne Kyle Spitzer. All Rights Reserved. Published by Hobb’s End Books, a division of ACME Sprockets & Visions. Cover design Copyright © 2017 Wayne Kyle Spitzer. Please direct all inquiries to: [email protected]

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this book is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

"You need to start eating better, Vic-O. You gobble too much candy and soda-pop and stuff. You are what you eat, did you know that? That's what Red MariIlion teaches you. Heh. You are what you eat. Or what you take. Or what you do."

— Harry Carter, to his son, Vic

"Insanity is often the logic of an accurate mind overtaxed."

— Oliver Wendell Holmes

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RED MARILLION.

That's what my old man had named the stuff. I found it listed under “R” in his little black book, just as I'd figured. I’d been sitting there on the basement floor—in what was now a very empty house—going through some of his things, when I came across the tome my mom used to call Harry's Cookbook. It'd been neatly tucked away between the middle pages of my folks' wedding album, which had been at the bottom of an ancient, dusty box I 'd found beneath the staircase.

My dad had always been a weekend woodsman. Kind of an odd guy. He'd pack up his camping gear and spend every other weekend alone in the mountains. His knowledge of various plants and herbs and the like was phenomenal, and he wrote down everything he knew, including new finds, in his black book. He had an herb or a moss or a fungus for everything, from simple cures to hangovers to the deadliest of poisons. The resulting effects of many of the poisonous entries were damn right nasty, while still others were clearly unbelievable. Yet he had always said they all worked, both the cures and the poisons, every time. If you just believed.

The excitement I’d felt upon rediscovering the wretched thing had been incredible, for it'd actually been the real reason—at least, at the subconscious level—that I'd decided to clean out the old rat-haven of a basement, anyway. My mind had been humming and ticking with the prospect of finding some of the old man's dark delights for weeks, but I suspect the foundations of my interest (obsession?) had been laid much earlier. In those indescribably horrible first few days after my son Mike's death. During Mikey's funeral I’d formulated a bizarre scheme in the back of my head which concerned that little, black book of Dad's. It wasn't until I’d actually found it and was holding it in my hands that the plan became concrete. Red MariIlion was to be the very soul of my venture.

I'd gone upstairs shortly after my discovery and built a roaring fire, which I sat in front of until three in the morning, pouring over those lethal memoirs. According to the old man, this mythical, magic plant not only existed, but could be found right here in the Northwest. Easily, he wrote, if you knew where to look and what to look for. After reading the section on Red Marillion, I knew just that.

I prayed he was right about this. After all, I did intend to murder a man—if he could be considered one—and that was certainly not a commitment I was prepared to take lightly. At least, not at first.

The next day, I mailed out a letter to an old friend, Lester Dryer, whom I hadn't spoken to in nearly four years.

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DEAREST LEST,