Into Painfreak Read online

  INTO

  PAINFREAK

  Edited by

  Gerard Houarner

  Necro Publications

  — 2016 —

  | — | — |

  First Edition Trade Paperback

  “Introduction: Why Painfreak?” © 2016 Gerard Houarner

  “Welcome to the Mercy Museum” © 2016 Charlee Jacob & Linda Addison

  “Henry-Tobacconist” © 2016 John Urbancik

  “The Night Sitter” © 2016 Edward Lee

  “Painfreak” © 2016 Gerard Houarner

  “The Thick of Chaos” © 2016 K. Trap Jones

  “Exclusive” © 2016 Randy Chandler

  “He Who Whispers the Dead Back to Life” © 2016 Lucy Taylor

  “The Reverend’s Wife” © 2016 Tony Tremblay

  “Ownership” © 2016 Wrath James White

  “The Danse Macabre” © 2016 Monica O’Rourke

  “The Rut” © 2016 Gerard Houarner

  “Coping Mechanism” © 2016 Jeff Strand

  “Pretty Me Up” © 2016 Michael T. Huyck, Jr.

  “Sacred Meat” © 2016 Jeffrey Thomas

  “Aikiko’s Blade” © 2016 Colleen Wanglund

  “Divine Red” © 2016 Ryan Harding

  “Bondage and Godhood” © 2016 Jordan Krall

  “They Deal in Pain, But Pleasure Is Better” © 2016 Chesya Burke

  ‘Sing Blue Silver” © 2016 John Everson

  “Storming the Museum” © 2016 Charlee Jacob

  Cover art © 2016 David G. Barnett

  This edition 2016 © Necro Publications

  LCCN: 2016955560

  ISBN: 978-1-944703-15-8

  Book design & typesetting:

  David G. Barnett

  fatcatgraphicdesign.com

  Assistant editors:

  David G. Barnett

  Necro Publications

  5139 Maxon Terrace, Sanford, FL 32771

  necropublications.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author, or his agent, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a critical article or review to be printed in a magazine or newspaper, or electronically transmitted on radio or television.

  All persons in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance that may seem to exist to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental. This is a work of fiction.

  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 person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  | — | — |

  For my father, who's been claiming to enjoy my Investutech stories for years.

  | — | — |

  Dedication:

  For Dave Barnett,

  and in memory of

  Tom Piccirilli and J. F. Gonzalez,

  writers and friends

  | — | — |

  Table of Contents

  Introduction: Why Painfreak? — Gerard Houarner

  Welcome to the Mercy Museum — Charlee Jacob & Linda Addison

  Henry-Tobacconist — John Urbancik

  The Night Sitter — Edward Lee

  Painfreak — Gerard Houarner

  The Thick of Chaos — K. Trap Jones

  Exclusive — Randy Chandler

  He Who Whispers the Dead Back to Life — Lucy Taylor

  The Reverend’s Wife — Tony Tremblay

  Ownership — Wrath James White

  The Danse Macabre — Monica O’Rourke

  The Rut — Gerard Houarner

  Coping Mechanism — Jeff Strand

  Pretty Me Up — Michael T. Huyck, Jr.

  Sacred Meat — Jeffrey Thomas

  Aikiko’s Blade — Colleen Wanglund

  Divine Red — Ryan Harding

  Bondage and Godhood — Jordan Krall

  They Deal in Pain, But Pleasure Is Better — Chesya Burke

  Sing Blue Silver — John Everson

  Storming the Museum — Charlee Jacob

  About the Authors

  | — | — |

  Why Painfreak

  Many years ago, I wrote a story called Painfreak—another one of those erotic horror stories about the doom of sexual excess that were so popular in the ’90s era of AIDS terror. It was published in David Barnett’s publishing venture, Into the Darkness, and received an Honorable Mention in that year’s St. Martins Press Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, so I assumed the story didn’t completely suck. Eventually, it became the title story of my first collection, also published by Dave’s Necro Publications, which became a modest small press success, with some of its stories becoming part of longer works published commercially.

  The idea of Painfreak, that supernatural sex club from hell, stayed with me. We writers love our little pocket universes. Over time it grew into a lively part of the fictional universe I play in, appearing every now and then in the stories of a particular supernatural assassin when situations demanded it. Through these tales, Painfreak became something mythical in my mind, a dark and magical place, a mine shaft dug into universal drives, desires, and monstrosities in search of a mother lode of horror and terror and essential truths about what we are, deep inside.

  Or at least, in my ever-hopeful mind, the old and venerable club became a stage that might make a story a little different from everyone else’s sex club horror story.

  All in all, Painfreak proved to be quite the little cornerstone in my tiny and irrelevant writing career. Something I could reach for when, for example, I needed a path into hell, or a place for terrible people to discover horrible things about themselves.

  Fast forward twenty odd years later, and out of nowhere (well, certainly, from the other side of his death) Dave Barnett asked me if I’d be interested in editing an anthology of Painfreak stories.

  Of course, I’d never imagined any such thing, and would never have proposed it. Who would care?

  I’m eternally grateful for the opportunities Dave’s given me. What presence I have in the horror field is founded in large part by the work I’ve done for him. Maybe, being a DJ and all, there’s the possibility that he might have worked in a place like Painfreak and he likes to relive his wayward youth through these fictional brushes with sex death.

  Once, just in case he’d never been there (which I find hard to believe), I made him the house DJ in the background.

  You never know.

  Anyway, my initial reaction, after the shock wore off, was mixed. Who am I to go asking for contributions based on a story I wrote a long time ago? What was Painfreak to anybody, that deserved its own anthology? The question is of course rhetorical—no one, and nothing.

  But Dave has faith in the idea. He’s asked every now and then for a Painfreak novel, but I’ve never quite gotten the angle on a book about a “place,” a Haunting of Hill House for erotic extremism. I’m not much into haunted houses and such. So far, I’ve felt more comfortable exploring the place through the adventures of characters passing through, seeing what “comes up,” so the speak, out of the shadows.

  I do enjoy the mystery of
the place, with its possibilities of sex and death, creation and destruction, all rolled up into a friendly, cozy little Tardis-like environment you might call the oldest established permanently floating sex club in the universe, if you were inclined to musical mythical horror mashups.

  So when I thought about it, and came to grips with the reality that a publisher who’s been around longer than many of the “big name” small presses, and who’s had an enormous impact on the field as well in this particular writer’s career, is now asking this particular writer if he’d like to do an anthology based on a key element of that writer’s universe, it seemed to be time to get real. Who else is ever going to give me that kind of chance?

  There are other reasons to do a project like this. Like, for the sheer hell of it, of course. There’s the satisfaction of doing a piece of work that will hopefully please my old friend, as well as whatever readers who’ve stuck with me over the years. And, just as important, here’s an opportunity to work with old friends, and some new ones, in an amusement park I made. Plus, I get to help writers get paid—feed the authors!

  There’s also the opportunity to relive the good old days, when my friend and co-editor GAK and I put together a string of Dead Cat projects, fiction and poetry, that were such a blast because of the people involved. I still feel that editorial rush every time Hildy Silverman sends me new copies of Space and Time magazine, where I can see pieces published that, as Fiction Editor, I recommended to her.

  Perhaps most importantly, for my creative satisfaction, here’s an opportunity for other creators to make something more, something else, something better, of this oldest established permanently floating sex club in the universe.

  So, after due consideration, I settled down to reality and, of course, said yes. So there you go and here we are—a collection of stories from old friends and new, many familiar to readers of the extreme, some not—I may have corrupted one or two and brought them over to the dark side, and for that, I offer no apologies. Hey, we’re all adults here. I’m honored that folks took the time to give this idea a shot and blow out some walls, air out a few corners, and kick some life into the old bird.

  For those of you who might be wondering why I also have an original story in here, along with the reprint of the original tale, there are two explanations. A number of writers who had originally jumped aboard dropped out along the way for the usual reasons, from medical disasters to conflicting deadlines—welcome to the “romantic” world of a working writer’s hectic business life. As the project evolved I began to worry if there’d be enough material, and so we have the primary explanation for the story’s presence. The secondary one is the fact that I’d already been inspired by the stories that were already in, with an idea percolating and demanding to be served. I figured if I did a back-up piece and didn’t need it, I could always sell it to someone else’s anthology. I showed it to Dave, and the next thing I knew he’d put it on the board.

  Turns out we have way more material than originally intended, so this extra one from me didn’t replace anyone’s tale—no writers were harmed or robbed or in any way deprived by its creation or in its presence. If anything, you’re free to mock it and tell me how badly my peers kicked my ass in my own playground! No harm in truth.

  Of course, I wish I’d been able to gather more new and old friends. For some, like Tom Piccirilli and Jesus Gonzalez, the project made me miss them even more. For the rest, I hope there’s a next opportunity in the future to open the gates and play in a brand new dark and terrible wonderland.

  Thanks to all the writers who supported this project, to the readers who have helped keep the idea live over the years, and of course thanks to Dave, for making it happen.

  Gerard Houarner

  NYC

  September, 2016

  PS—Here’s the Painfreak description I used in the guidelines for the anthology, for readers who may interested, now or later:

  Painfreak is a floating, international and interdimensional club dedicated to fulfilling people’s deepest sexual needs and appetites. It appears unexpectedly, emerging in the abandoned places, the ruins and lost crossroads, the forgotten dead ends, in the heart of great cities and other places where people in numbers congregate. And then it vanishes, to return someday when enough people need it to.

  Not everyone who goes in, comes out.

  A short, thin Asian man, and a scarred, bald-headed giant serve as its gatekeepers, vetting those who want to enter by checking them for a referral, or the club’s bone mark on the back of the left hand between thumb and forefinger, visible only in Painfreak’s presence. No amount of money or treasure, no service to the club or its gatekeepers, can buy entry. Entrance is granted only by being accompanied by a club patron, or bearing a referral from a patron (the door men can tell when you’re lying), or having the mark given to all first-time visitors.

  The club’s structure changes depending on time, place and culture, but in general entry involves a “long walk” through some kind of no-man’s territory and entry into a grand, opulent club space filled with sexual entertainment. Most club-goers never venture beyond this point, content to dabble in the tamer games being played, or to watch. These are the tourists.

  Painfreak’s elite patrons, demons and angels, the desperate and the cunning, predators and prey, drift deeper into Painfreak, finding the back rooms and private chambers of corruption, perversion, rage, hunger, desire, pain. Sex is the doorway they use to reach their secret natures.

  Painfreak feeds, and feeds on, the dance between the destructive and self-destructive. It nurtures the predator and prey in each of us, creates endless playgrounds to seduce and empower the innocent and the monstrous. It welcomes all gods and goddesses, all the creatures of mythologies known and unknown, the void and the fires at the heart of creation. Painfreak sits at the crossroads between appetites and self-annihilation.

  Sometimes, people stay, by choice, temptation, or terrible error. Perhaps, they discover a new world or hell to live in. They may come back changed into something else, transformed from weak to powerful, or vice versa. Forgiven or cursed, avenged or betrayed. Burdened by the unknown, and by what they could have never perceived before they came to Painfreak.

  They die. They leave Painfreak, and they come back for more. They haunt.

  It would be interesting to have a story about Painfreak without anyone ever setting a foot in it—the effect on characters based just on the idea of it, the threat the possibility of its existence might pose on an otherwise realistic setting and character.

  In conclusion, a theory:

  Painfreak has always been here, always will be, wherever humans carry the burdens of their appetites and natures. It has had other names, other guardians. In the past, it may have been a temple, or a secret cave where there’d been none before. In the future, it may become something else. But its purpose, its service to the evolving hungers that drive humanity, remains the same. It is a shadow we cast, the shadow we fight or embrace, the shadow we are consumed by or become.

  ««—»»

  That, along with the original story and some Painfreak scenes taken from other tales, are the chips the writers who follow were given to play with. Consider yourself invited, hold out your hand for the mark, and enter of your own free will.

  Come to watch? Come to play? You never know.

  Just remember, not everyone who goes in comes out.

  Let the good times roll…

  | — | — |

  Welcome to the Mercy Museum

  ————

  Charlee Jacob & Linda Addison

  Admission only to Painfreak’s elite.

  You who long to scrape secret answers

  from moist doors in the halls of midnight.

  Limbs, smiles full of bone on bone love.

  When the great Cosmic Orgasms,

  monologues of opening acts

  proclaim your arrival, deeper

  insurrections of flesh will whisper.

  Ma
in exhibit discovered in a bone canopic jar

  around the end of the 23rd century…

  See how hungry light turns from it,

  like the forbidden face of God.

  Listen closely, muffled screams

  of radiant destruction vibrate

  within, fed by your presence,

  leaving an aftertaste, salty-sweet.

  Human-shaped darkness avoids

  reflection on its surface.

  An appetizer of things to come,

  a monstrous wind hissing from beyond.

  This is the part where Creation

  never speaks in its real voice.

  | — | — |

  Henry, Tobacconist

  ————

  John Urbancik

  What is this life? A series of otherwise disconnected events happen to, or get thrown at, a person? It’s tough to define life when you remember none of it beyond the past two years. Not the birth or the birthdays, not the lovers or the friends, not the rivals or the enemies. Thus, life becomes a series of burn barrels, highway overpasses, cheap bourbon, and broken women. Sex isn’t comfort; it’s the final braying screams of two or three abandoned souls, it’s the effervescence of disease, decay, and death.

  This is his life. Everything borrowed or found or stolen—even his name, ripped off the ghost of an advertisement on the bricks of an abandoned building. Henry. Tobacconist. No one needs his name anyhow. There’s no such thing as conversation in this life. Maybe once. Maybe before. He doesn’t know and likely never will. But he feels it’s important to maintain a name, an identity, something he can use to refer to himself within his inner monologues. It separates his from the innumerable faces of strangers, concubines, and competitors.