In the Clutches of El Diablo

By C. C. Blake

C. C. Blake is no stranger to thrill seekers. His award winning story "Chuck Cave and the Vanishing Vixen" ignited the pages of Man's Story 2 magazine in 2005, and spawned a series of tough, no holds barred adventure stories starring the indefatigable Chuck Cave. This collection contains another four stories in the pulp tradition. Tough guys and dangerous dames in wild settings face off against sadistic madmen and human evil.

Chuck Cave stars in "In the Clutches of El Diablo," a story set shortly after his return from the Korean War. The east Texas rose fields are a nightmare of heat and hardship. However, when a plane drops into the one Chuck Cave is working, it ignites more than a wildfire. War erupts in the east Texas fields, catching Chuck Cave in the crossfire. Behind the scenes waits a mysterious villain, called El Diablo, who owns the law and fears no man. Of course, he has never met anyone like Chuck Cave.

The provocative "Pain Slaves of the Lust Pimps" reveals a sickness in a small town in Michigan. Men nab a girl off the streets, ready to subject her to the torments of the damned. She is not their first victim, but if her father and Chuck Cave have anything to say about it, she will be their last!

"Follow That Redhead!" starts with a bang, when Chuck Cave encounters a terrified woman being pursued by goons in Worcester, Massachusetts. Who is she and what does she know that a local anthropologist is willing to murder for? This story is an unforgettable exercise in thrills!

"Murdock Cave and the Captive Cutie" turns the clock back to World War II, and follows Chuck Cave's father, as he leads a rag tag group of soldiers to the gates of Der Schloss, an infamous Nazi prison, where an invaluable asset is being held and tormented. Will Murdock Cave get her out of the Third Reich's clutches before she is forced to talk?

C. C. Blake's brand of action-packed storytelling is on full display in these stories. Exclusive to this eBook is a special introduction, which pulls back the curtain on the storytelling magic. Here, Blake discusses the development of the Cave stories into a full blown family epic and reveals what relationship the supernatural thrillers have to the character's less outré adventures.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Twice Told Tales II
• Release date: Sep 19, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301861125

C. C. Blake

C.C. Blake has lived across the United States, starting in the suburbs of Detroit, to Massachusetts’ second largest city (Worcester) to the country’s seventh largest city (San Antonio, Texas, that is). He’s has a variety of jobs, working as a substitute teacher, the graveyard shift dishwasher at a haunted Denny’s, lab research monkey and teaching assistant at a second tier college. Currently, he works as an automation consultant for a chemical company on the Northeast side of SAtown (which isn’t as Hellish as it sounds). Blake’s most popular character, irrepressible adventurer Chuck Cave, has appeared in over two dozen stories, including the 2005 Man’s Story 2 Story of the Year Award winner “Chuck Cave and the Vanishing Vixen.” The character’s supernatural thriller stories (which began with the seminal “Cave and the Vamp”) are all being released as a part of Vampires2.com’s initial foray into e-books. These new versions are presented in expanded and revised versions, all are the author’s preferred texts. Be sure to collect them all! In addition to his pulp stories for the 2-Empire (Man’s Story 2, Vampires 2, Androids 2 and Paranormal Romance 2), Blake’s fiction has appeared in several anthologies, including Unparalleled Journeys II (from Journey Books Publishing) and Fearology: Terrifying Tales of Phobias (from Library of Horror Press).

Book preview

In the Clutches of El Diablo

Four Tales of Suspense

By: C. C. Blake

Table of Contents

In the Clutches of El Diablo!

Pain Slaves of the Lust Pimps

Follow That Redhead

Murdock Cave and the Captive Cutie

Another Cave: An Afterward by the Author

Further Reading

About the Author

In the Clutches of El Diablo

Lucy stopped rubbing his shoulders and asked, "You're doing this God awful job because you want to? She shook her head. Chuck, that's crazy."

Not yet dawn. Her bedroom was still cool. This would change come sun up. July heat was merciless.

After Korea, I didn't want to go home, Chuck Cave said. He was a young man, twenty-seven. The heat made him feel older by far. My buddy always talked about how great the rose-fields were. So, I thought, why not go to East Texas?

Before he came, Chuck assumed the whole state was a desert. This proved not to be the case at all. A nice surprise.

Lucy kissed his fingers.

A year later, I know better. He smirked. It's tough, awful work.

You planning on going back to your home? Her eyes told him she wanted him to stay, maybe find something else to do. Perhaps make an honest woman of her.

Lucy was a dark-haired, dark-eyed girl with full lips and full breasts. Her legs were strong and lovely to see strutting through the small town streets of Almedo.

Not yet, he said and pulled her close to taste her lips. Though he'd sampled that flavor more than a few times, every visit was like his first. She had a talent for kissing among other things.

I've never been out of Almedo, she said, But I wouldn't mind seeing up north.

He ran his fingers through her hair. I wouldn't mind showing it to you. His eyes darted to the clock. But I have to go to work.

She pouted but let him go.

No fuss for me to stay? he asked.

She said, My momma taught me the importance of picking battles. See you later?

Tonight, I'm having beers with Monty, he said. I'll be around, afterwards.

#

When Chuck arrived at the rose-field, he was given a bundle of sticks. Monty, who'd lost an eye on Pork Chop Hill, gave him a grateful grin. Today, we're Doing Sticks, he said.

Well, hell. Doing Sticks was Chuck's least favorite job, next to digging and budding and everything else associated with the rose-fields. He knew his back would be blown by evening, but work was work.

At least Montgomery hired some hands, this year. Illegals, but hard workers. Rafael was their leader, an athletic looking man with a moustache two sizes too big for his face.

"Hola, Senor Cave!" Rafael said, waving his sticks.

Chuck nodded to him and then started the duty.

By 10:00 the sun's heat was baking. By 11:00, Chuck was ready to tell the great chef in the sky that he was overcooked. Hunkering and jabbing sticks into the ground was harder than it looked. Maybe someday, somebody would develop a machine to do this. That man would save a thousand backs from misery. Then again, a lot of folks would lose work.

Just before lunchtime, Chuck heard something unusual: an engine coughing and sputtering.

Terrified, the workers were pointing into the heavens.

A dual prop plane was falling out of the sky toward them. One wing was on fire. Both engines were dying.

Get the hell out! Chuck shouted. The workers ran.

However, Monty didn't. He stood in ground zero, waving at the plane like a maniac, shouting, Get away from my fields!

Chuck grabbed his shoulder and pulled him away. Move if you don't want to be a dead man!

That blind eye rolled Chuck's way, and a shiver raced up Chuck's spine. That eye could have belonged to a dead man, already.

Both men hustled from the field.

They were clear when the plane's belly slammed into the ground, ripping up sticks and roses and spraying dirt in waves. The chassis gouged a ragged line through the field, fishtailing wildly side-to-side. Momentum carried the hulk almost ninety yards, before it came to a halt.

Gasoline poured onto the field. With the fire, an explosion was imminent.

Someone's trapped inside, Rafael said.

A shape in the copilot's seat struggled with the safety harness and then pounded the door open and screamed. A woman.

Chuck ran to help.

Monty shouted, That thing's going to blow!

Chuck did not stop.

It was a Mexican girl. Lovely, though battered. Her terrified hands could not release the harness.

Chuck studied the catch. The latch was broken. He grabbed the knife off his belt and cut the bonds. When she was free, he looked past her.

The