Thoughts on Missing Yet Another TWILIGHT ZONE Marathon

There are two times in all the year that I miss having satellite or cable TV, and those are New Year’s Eve/Day and the Fourth of July, when the cable channel formerly known as SciFi airs its semi-traditional The Twilight Zone marathon. I would leave the TV running all day. Even if I was out of the room for some episodes, it was comforting to walk in and see another Rod Serling-adapted morality play in progress that I could easily fall into. Sometimes I’d catch one of the 156 episodes I hadn’t yet seen. I never fussed much with the schedule. The surprise was part of the fun. 


I liked how the year was framed with these marathons. The Fourth of July is a celebration of the middle of the U.S. summer, and, by extension, the mid-point of the year. We are closer to the next Christmas than we are the last one. Participating in the Fourth of July Twilight Zone marathon is like being a devout churchgoer and attending the Wednesday evening service. It is a sweet, necessary boost to get one through the rest of the week/year.

That is, it was. According to my sources on the Facebook Twilight Zone fan page, the channel formerly known as SciFi has cut the length of the marathon by many hours, runs only half-hour episodes butchered to fit more commercials, while skipping the fourth season hour-length shows. It’s probably a safe bet they don’t run the extras like Rod Serling’s commercial spots for Chesterfield cigarettes, etc. like they used to. By the time I gave up satellite it was clear no one cared anymore, and not only on the channel formerly known as SciFi. 


What I like about The Twilight Zone is that the Zone is a magical realm where meanness and brute stupidity are punished, and the innocent and good rewarded. Whether you’re the cruel step-father who won’t begrudge his daughter a doll, the loud, arrogant jackass who destroys the computer in the cave that keeps the post-apocalyptic society alive, etc., you’re dead. You’re lucky if you get driven to the police station by the self-aware car you killed someone with.

There are a few downbeat endings, but very few. The first that comes to mind is one a lot will disagree with me about, “A Stop at Willoughby,” in which the harried advertising exec with the brutal boss, the duplicitous coworkers, and a heartless harridan for a wife escapes to the unhurried life of turn-of-the-19th-2oth century Willoughby by jumping from a commuter train—only to have his body carried off by Willoughby and Sons Funeral Home. As the protagonist kills himself for a fantasy, I fail to see how this is anything but a bleak, depressing episode, but we’ll agree to disagree.

Then there is the sad irony of “The Midnight Sun,” in which a overheated woman suffers as the Earth falls into the sun. But we learn she’s only dreaming—the Earth is actually falling away into freezing darkness. The most notable outlier is probably the delirious nihilism of writer Jerome Bixby’s “It’s a Good Life,” with the little boy terrorizing a town with his uncanny ability to shape reality to his whims. 

While great and memorable episodes, neither of these represent the sum total of The Twilight Zone experience. For all those outliers are the concentration camp commander judged by the ghosts of his victims, the cad who thinks he’s in Heaven because it’s all going his way, only to learn he’s not; the official for the totalitarian regime turned on by his own—there are many, many others in which the human monsters large and small get their comeuppance, and in ways that would never happen in real life.

Like leaving a really good service at a really good church, you leave The Twilight Zone marathon invigorated. We proceed secure in the knowledge that, if nowhere else, we’d be all right there. Are we not reasonable people who behave reasonably, and with honorable intent? Surely we shall find our proper reward...in the Twilight Zone. 

It’s a sweet delusion. As it turns out, I have a sweet tooth, so I’ll take it. Not from the channel formerly known as SciFi, but from fond memory, which is all we’re left with in the end, so there you go.

Fourth of July Fun with Fireworks and Zombies!

From My Work in Progress, THE WRONG KIND OF DEAD: a Taste of What’s Cooking in the Zombie Night Kitchen

It’s the Fourth of July, and in my native USA, that means grillin’ meat and fireworks. All of which we’re going to do here with a horde of hungry dead before Derek Grace, his family and supporters from the Abundant Life settlement, and a band of bikers led by a man named Scuzz, go all-out Mad Max up Interstate 25 to what they can only hope is safety in Monument, Colorado.

Just so we’re clear, “Mom’s Taxi” is a 15-foot tall monster truck with a flame-thrower attached. That’s not spelled out in the excerpt, which is why I’m telling you here. 

This is why I haven’t been posting much this year. I’ve been busy with wholesome family fun like this. Come with me, if you want to desecrate some corpses....

I see three of Scuzz’s men distributing brown paper bags among the riders up front. As soon as a rider takes possession he doesn’t wait for an order; he pulls the tubes of Roman candles and rockets from the rubber-banded bundle and fires one up with the cigarette hanging from his mouth.

White trails of smoke hiss away into the approaching herd. Efforts are made to hit these former people in their faces with neon-pink fire, but that doesn’t always work. The concentrated flames will land on a shoulder, burst across a chest, enraging the ghoul and bringing it surging forward for murder. 

One woman’s rags of an outfit burst into flames, which fortuitously disrupts the forward motion of that group as they, too, catch fire, or frantically back away to avoid catching fire. “This is taking too long,” says Agnes.

With a quickness of motion that tells me she’s doing this before she loses her nerve, Agnes turns the flamethrower 45 degrees to the left and brings the barrel back at a steep angle. The jet of flame arcs high, so high it loses some of its power before landing short of the near corner where the road leading towards Abundant Life’s HQ meets the one we’re on. It’s enough to ignite blood-stiff clothing, if not dried flesh. The afflicted ignite those closest to them in the course of trying to tear off their blazing rags. 

Agnes drops the barrel by a few degrees before sending out another volley of fire. This blaze falls just short of the ones with flaming clothes, and has just enough hang-time to smolder their skins. These crisping former citizens flap their arms and kick frantically, as if they might shake off the flames. 

Still, it’s hard to laugh when you might well be losing. The numbers are against us. Although our moon roof shooters have thinned out the dead emerging from the tall grass along the left side of the road, the stragglers are still drawing precious rounds away from the herd ahead of us. Even with the assistance of Scuzz’s people, it doesn’t look like we’re going to run out of dead on that side. I can only imagine what it’s like at the very end of our convoy. And I’d rather not. “A.J., message Justin, Rene, and Melinda. I need to know how they’re doing.”

A.J. begins thumbing in her message. She stops. “Brother Christopher says we have to move.”

“Advise him of our situation,” I say.

“‘Moving is better than standing still,’ he says.”

Christopher can’t see it from our vantage point high up on the monster truck, but there is no moving unless we make a path. Mom’s Taxi could drive all day through this, but the people behind us might as well be driving into the ocean. An ocean full of things that swarm, smash, bite, and chew.

“It’s that guy again,” says A.J. “He says if we don’t start moving now we’re going to be in real trouble in a couple of minutes.”

“So this is the fake trouble?” Agnes is laying down more fire, expanding the zone of burning bodies. It’s slow going, but she’s shunting a good bit of the herd down that side road—where they seem perfectly content to follow the more iconoclastic groups that did this on their own.

Still, the group in front of us is too dense to wade into with mere trucks and SUVs. I look towards Scuzz’s people. Most of them have exhausted their fireworks supply, but two groups of men on either side are loading rockets into those fat tubes you see at professional fireworks displays. This is tricky work, because these things are not designed to lie on their sides. One man props up the end of his tube with his boot. Another lights the fuse and runs away while the other man checks his foot for the angle before covering his face with his hands.

At fireworks shows in the old days you’d hear a low boom when these things launched. Immediately to either side of us, it sounds like cannons going off, one after another. I’ve never been so grateful for these noise canceling headsets. I can only imagine what it’s like for the people on the ground.

Even the dead have taken a step back at the sound, causing some to fall down, others to fall with them. The rockets ricocheting off their chest and legs, scorching them black with the orange-sparking wash, don’t help their balance. Blue gray smoke, and an unnatural howling loud enough to be heard over our truck’s engine rises about the herd.

Then the bombs burst in air—maybe all of four feet up, and smack in the middle of the seething mass. White-hot spikes of fire fan high over the herd before sizzling into their faces and shoulders below.

As if knowing full well this won’t be quite enough, the teams on either side of us are loading and firing another round. When they’re done with that, they fire another.

That awful garbage stink of smoldering corpses fouls everything as their pained dancing pumps oily smoke into the air. Still, they continue to surge forward, a tide that will surely engulf us if something isn’t done in the next two minutes.

What happens next? I don’t know. I’ve got to write it to find out!

Meanwhile, I’ve got two books out with scenes as crazy, if not crazier for you to read while you’re waiting on my zombie-slow, foot-draggin’ ass.  It’s the Fourth, and all the barbecuing I’m doing is on the printed page. So long as I have cold beer, I’m good. Here’s hoping you’re the same.

Only the strong will survive

BLEEDING KANSAS, from SEVERED PRESS.

US Kindle and Paperback
UK Kindle and Paperback
Canadian Kindle and Paperback

Deutsch Sprachübersetzungs!

In the heart of darkest horror, you will find 

GRACE AMONG THE DEAD.

US Kindle and Paperback
UK Kindle and Paperback
Canadian Kindle and Paperback

Coming in 2017: 

THE WRONG KIND OF DEAD.

The Art of GRACE AMONG THE DEAD: Digital Drugstore Cowpunching

My wife, Cynthia Aiken, took it upon herself to illustrate scenes from my novel Grace Among the Dead by way of fulfilling an art school assignment, and maybe drawing attention to my work, while in turn drawing attention to her art. So let’s see if this works:

Art Copyright © 2015 Angry Chicken Studio.

Book 2 of The Saga of the Dead Silencer: Grace Among the Dead Copyright © 2014, 2015 by L. Roy Aiken.

Oxford shirts smeared brown and black, their ragged ties stiff with old blood, our first three office stooges get their numb, dead feet back under them. The two others behind them shuffle and growl for the delay. Now, all five are reaching for me over the counter, trying to work out how to get over it without falling face-forward and losing their footing again.

Their craving to chew into my warm, living flesh will soon overcome the matter of their undead dignity. Here, with their arms outstretched, their heads laid out across the counter, these ghouls are all but offering themselves to me.

I pull my panga from my belt. My beautiful panga, weapon of choice of the Rwandan genocide, and the most invaluable souvenir of my Kansas adventure. My left arm is hobbled from the woman’s crushing grip so it’s raw adrenaline driving its wide blade through the arms of the first two office stooges and the near hand of the third before sticking halfway through his other wrist.

The man in the picture didn’t look at all what I imagined Derek Grace to look like. The Dead Silencer is in his mid-40s. This character is dressed young. A duckbill and a wife-beater? Heck, put some ink on those arms while we’re at it.

To be fair, my wife had not read the previous novel, Bleeding Kansas, in which it’s established from the jump that he’s a middle-aged man struggling out of middle-aged professional irrelevance when the Final Flu crashes infrastructure, and the rise of the dead to feast on the flesh of the living separates him from his two nearly grown children. I may have to retcon Chapter 1 of Grace Among the Dead to fix this, as I like the idea of the books in my series standing independently of each other; i.e., you don’t have to read the book that came out before to make sense of the book you’re reading now.

Also, I subscribe to Elmore Leonard’s philosophy regarding character description. Unless there’s something about the character’s appearance that is integral to the story, let the reader cast and clothe the character in his mind. My wife read the above quoted passage, and that’s what she came up with.

I’m flattered to see these characters coming to life at all. And if you buy the book, and you like to think of Derek Grace as rocking full sleeves of sick ink, well, that’s how he rolls.

Sunday Surf: Terry Border’s BENT OBJECTS

First in what will likely be a very short series about Sites I Like.

While drinking and surfing the Internet, I often come across images I like that I automatically download with no regard for who did them. That happened with this image right here. I knew it would be a hit on my Facebook page.

I’m especially impressed by the gloating expression on the one-eyed zombie in the middle.

Hard to resist for a guy who writes zombie fiction, amirite?

Look at this, though. Someone took the trouble to make these objects and photograph them. This wasn’t something someone gundecked at the coffee table while half-bored watching Game of Thrones. Note the morbid color of the zombie peanuts versus the healthy victim. Note the carefully graded background lighting, the texture of the surface the objects stand on, the placement of those objects in the photo.

The least I could do was a reverse image search (right click on the image with your mouse, if you don’t know), find out who did this, give them credit—and maybe get a better resolution image out of the deal. 

And so it was that I found Terry Border and his Bent Objects page. Border has another page set up for selling prints and whatever, but Bent Objects is where he cuts loose.

FEAR the WALKING BREAD. The necrotic look of the zombie bread is squick-a-licious.

You can follow Terry Border on Facebook and on Twitter. He has what looks to be a couple of truly charming and whimsical children’s books, so check those out if you’re in the market for some non-corporate franchise fun.

The feel of Border’s work reminds me a lot of the Penny Cartoons from Pee-wee’s Playhouse, which I know helps absolutely no one, so click the above links already. While indulging my guilt, I learned Border had a picture of his used by George Takei without credit. Border wrote a blog post saying all he wanted was a little love, i.e., recognition. I say to heck with that. Buy his books, send him money. Love may be what he wants, but we all know what he needs to keep the good work coming.

Sermon over. Now get off the computer and go outside. Don’t waste a pretty day.

State of the Apocalypse, Semi-Immediate Post-Solstice Edtion

This was originally titled “The Ides of June Edition.” Then the Ides of June became the next week’s summer solstice, and then that became three days after. I just haven’t been in a bloggy groove for a while. I’m too busy rewriting, retconning, and going on a general murder spree regarding all my narrative tics. 

I suppose I could have written about current events in the news. I would have picked up one audience while alienating others. As it is, I post nothing, there’s nothing for anyone to read, and I have no audience at all.

Still, it’s better this way. As I used to tell my children (now grown and done with me), drama belongs on the TV. Or, more to the point, in a book. And I really, really want to finish this last book in my SAGA OF THE DEAD SILENCER series and send it off with a gooey, gruey bang.

Here’s just a small taste of what I’ve been working on. Check out everything that’s going on here:

___________________________________________

I walk up to Smug Young Thing, groaning in the dirt alongside the road. “Hey,” I say, nudging his ribs with the tip of my boot, “how long have you been working these checkpoints?”

His expression is the closest thing to an undead rage face I’ve seen on a living human. “I’ve been in charge of perimeter security since February, you ass,” he says.

Smug Young Thing jerks to one side in a heroic effort to retrieve his AR-15, but my heel catches his operative shoulder as it comes up. I push him back to the hardpan between the road and the drainage ditch. My foot still on him, I lean over to retrieve his rifle.

“So, you’re aware of what happened that night when a young man came by looking to get the midwife.”

“Aware, shit. I was the one who turned him away. I heard the cow and her sprog died. You gonna send the whiny faggot over to finish me? I’ll be impressed if he has the balls to do it. He begged like a bitch.”

I yank him up by the front of his shirt. “Justin Driscoll is one of our best warriors. That he won’t waste his talents seeking revenge on trash like you shows a strength of spirit I hope to understand some day.” I shove him back to the earth. “I should live so long.”

Smug Young Thing does a fine job of suppressing his pain. That is, until he lands on his wrecked shoulder. I notice another odor in the air as I strip him of his sidearm. His phone—it’s in a bright green protective case, but it’s the same Provisional Government-issue model Dietzen issued us. I wonder how long he’s had this. 

Not that I need to know that badly. I step away from Smug Young Thing and look towards the woods on the opposite side of the road, then towards Elyssa’s and Brother Christopher’s convoy. 

“Heads up!”

The shotgun blast that distracted the checkpoint crew rang like a homing beacon to the local population. The smoke from the burning live bodies has to be attracting them, too. And now Agnes, who can see them coming from her perch high up in the truck, has already started the engine.

“Wait,” squeals the former chief of perimeter security for the Abundant Life settlement. “Aren’t you going to shoot me?” He struggles to get up, but it’s hard to do with one arm.

“I just did.” I put my heel out again and push him back down, again to his bad side. Although I missed the artery, the little psychopath sustained serious trauma on his right shoulder. The round scooped the entirety of his upper deltoid clean from the bone. Gotta love those hollowpoints.

I don’t want to spoil the moment by walking away too fast. I have to trust that the woman in the filthy, blood-rotted shift will settle for the easy meat moaning and weeping behind me. The high shrieking I hear over the chatter of Mom’s Taxi as I begin climbing confirms that she did just that.

There’s no sense wasting time trying to look smooth while scrambling up the ladder, though. A man wearing the black ribbons of a white T-shirt and the ruins of boxer shorts shuffles up behind the woman. It won’t be long until the rest of the Diner’s Club gets here.

Weapons porn, check. Revenge porn, check. A Great Evil we will have to deal with down the road. (Check that phone!) Zombies. Zombies eating people. A flame-thrower, and burning bodies. The kind of truck you climb into via rope ladder. Plucky survivors who have the evil living and the amoral dead to contend with. It’s all here.

Readers may recognize this passage from a few months back. It’s streamlined, yet with one added feature. It’s been one hell of a grind going through all these pages and making sure everything ties together, that everything has a purpose.

I’m still haunted by a passage I read in a popular, perennial zombie book series, in which the hero encounters a newcomer to his survivor’s camp whose speech and attitude promise trouble to come—only to have the author forget we met this person as the drama builds into the third act. 

The name of this book isn’t important. Nor am I judging the author, because I know how easy this is to do. In this case, it simply looked like a good confrontational scene; he might have left it in there for just that reason, while missing how this character has defined herself as someone who will be trouble later. Maybe he dealt with this person in the next book. 

What I know for certain is that, as there was no resolution to this conflict addressed in the book at hand, it created a discordant note in the narrative. It was a classic violation of Chekhov’s dictum that, if there is a rifle over the mantle in Act I, that same rifle needs to be discharged by Act III. 

Again, though, it’s easy to do, especially if the narrative has been going on for a while. Fortunately, the fix is just as easy. It will, however, require going one page at a time to find these scenes, and either tie them together with something before or after the scene in question, or omit the scene altogether.

When will I be done with this? I wish I knew. It’s going to be a short summer, Charlie Brown.

If you’re looking for some slam-bang zompocalypse action to read in the meantime, and you missed the link above, here it is again. I’ve got to get back to work.

Assume the position, son. It ain’t gonna write itself.

Horror at Lunch

With a stickpin and the right ketchup packet, we have instant entertainment to transport us from the more banal evils of the “news” cycle.

If only for a moment. Or when I finally look away, whichever comes first.

A Very Special WALKING DEAD

As in “Special Ed” special. Y’all be nice, now....

So I come across the graphic on the Interwebs and it occurs to me, if Buffy the Vampire Slayer can have its all-musical show, etc., why not an all-Muppets episode of The Walking Dead? 

I like to think of Kermit in the role of Rick, and Elmo as Carl. Imagine Miss Piggy as Carol, going full-on Demolition Dame on Terminus.

As for the part of Daryl, I’m thinking a brooding, subdued Animal.