Limbus, Inc. - Book II

By Jonathan Maberry, Joe R. Lansdale, Gary A. Braunbeck and 2 more

“The world is a stage, life is a play, and we are the puppets. It’s better not to ask who pulls the strings.” How lucky do you feel? That question echoed through the world’s underground, scrawled on bathroom walls, spray-painted across subway tunnel exits, written on paper that fluttered through bleak side-streets in the winter wind, printed on cheap business cards tacked to corkboard displays in darkened hallways. But always beneath one name—Limbus. Matthew Sellers revealed the truth of Limbus, Inc. to the world, and in his tales of time travelers, intergalactic beings, and human sacrifice, he thought he had told it all. But the story of the shadowy employment agency that operates on the edge of the abyss, always finding the perfect person for the perfect job—no matter what the cost—had only begun. This shared-world anthology continues the story of Limbus, Inc., as told by five masters of horror, fantasy, and science fiction. But beware, for once you learn the truth of Limbus, Inc., your world will never be the same. So it's time to ask yourself . . . How lucky do you feel?

• Language: English
• Publisher: JournalStone
• Release date: Oct 24, 2014
• ISBN: 9781940161341

Jonathan Maberry

Jonathan Maberry is a New York Times bestselling and five-time Bram Stoker Award–winning author, anthology editor, comic book writer, executive producer, and writing teacher. He is the creator of V Wars (Netflix) and Rot & Ruin (Alcon Entertainment). His books have been sold to more than two dozen countries. To learn more about Jonathan, visit him online at jonathanmaberry.

Book preview

Limbus, Inc.

Book II

A Shared World Experience

Harry Shannon

Gary A. Braunbeck

Joe R. Lansdale

Jonathan Maberry

Joe McKinney

Edited by Brett J. Talley

JournalStone

San Francisco

Copyright © 2014

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously.

JournalStone books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

JournalStone

www.journalstone.com

The views expressed in this work are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

ISBN: 978-1-940161-33-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-940161-34-1 (e-book)

ISBN: 978-1-940161-35-8 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-940161-36-5 (hc—limited edition—Fine binding)

JournalStone rev. date: October 24, 2014

Printed in the United States of America

Cover Design: Rob Grom

Cover Photograph © Shutterstock.com

Edited by: Brett J. Talley

This book is dedicated to Anne C. Petty, a woman whose kindness and generosity were matched only by her talent and wicked sense of humor. That talent gave Limbus to the world, and it will continue on even though Anne has left us. She is dearly and truly missed.

What is Limbus?

Limbus is Latin for edge or boundary,

but that’s not the whole story.

Welcome to the world of Limbus, Inc., a shadow organization at the edge of reality whose recruitment methods are low-rent, sketchy, even haphazard to the ordinary eye: a tattered flyer taped to a bus-stop shed or tacked to the bulletin board of a neighborhood Laundromat, a dropped business card, a popup ad on the Internet. Limbus's employees are as suspicious and ephemeral as the company, if indeed it could be called a company in the normal sense of the word.

Recruiters offer contracts for employment tailored exactly to the job seeker in question. But a word to the wise… it’s always a good idea to read the fine print.

Table of Contents

Prologue – Český Krumlov

Zero at the Bone – Harry Shannon

First Interlude: Whispers in Shadow

Fishing for Dinosaurs – Joe R. Lansdale

Second Interlude: No Good Deed

Lost and Found – Joe McKinney

Third Interlude: Beyond the Veil

The Transmigration of Librarian Blaine Evans – Gary A. Braunbeck

Fourth Interlude: A Pawn in their Game

Three Guys Walk into a Bark - Jonathan Maberry

Epilogue

About the Authors

Limbus, Inc.

Book II

A Shared World Experience

Prologue: Český Krumlov

The tourists had not come to Český Krumlov that winter, for the heavy snows had dissuaded even the most adventurous travelers. That made it perfect for Conrad. He had needed somewhere to disappear after Prague had become too hot, even if no one yet knew his face or his name. After the Silk Road fell, anything was possible. Every day he expected Interpol to show up at his door, even in this sleepy and forgotten town, nestled deep within the Czech Alps.

But they had not come, not yet, and he hoped no one had or would connect Conrad McKay with the hacker known as Jack Rabbit, the same Jack Rabbit who had sold his skills on the dark net, sometimes to the highest bidder, sometimes to the one with the most interesting offer of employment. The same Jack Rabbit who had hacked the NASDAQ and the NSA. The first for fortune, the second for glory.

In Český Krumlov, he was only a college kid taking a year off from school to travel Europe, even if he never left the ancient city center of the medieval town. The locals didn’t ask questions. The tourists had not come. It was cold and the snow piled high and they needed the cash.

He lived in a boarding house that doubled as a hotel and tripled as the home of the family who owned it. He spent his days and his nights and his koruna in the corner of a cellar bar called Van Gogh’s that was not nearly as chintzy as the name suggested. He played chess with the bartender until the early watches of the morning. Then he spent hours reading message boards and TORchan, following the demise of the Silk Road and trying his best to ferret out any rumors of the infamous Jack Rabbit’s hiding spot. They knew he was in Europe. That was it. But even that was too close.

Otherwise, he stayed off the net. He resisted the urge to play. To break through walls, just to see whether he could. They were watching. He had to lay low. And it was driving him insane.

There were worse ways to live. Conrad ate steak every meal in nearly empty restaurants and pubs, and every meal he washed it down with Budweiser—the original kind. And all for the price of a burger back home. Not that he worried about the money. The Bitcoins he still held were worth a fortune, and he could live for a month or more converting a single one to koruna. Not a bad life at all, and he guessed he should be happy here, a place lost to time where he could live like one of the city’s ancient rulers. But the mountains and the medieval citadel ramparts built to hold back the Turks centuries before felt like prison walls. And as the snow piled higher and higher and the temperature plunged further and further, even his thoughts seemed to freeze.

He needed a release. One night, he found it.

It began in the midst of a particularly strong snowstorm when the heavy fall of powder-white flakes had dissuaded Conrad from venturing out into the darkened streets. He sat at a wooden table, rough-hewn and no doubt carved by hand some decades before. A fire roared in the hearth, and the barmaid—the youngest daughter of the owners of the place—dropped a flagon of beer and a large stein in front of him. He thanked her and smiled sheepishly. She stared back with lust in her eyes as she had since the first day he had arrived. Conrad wasn’t much to look at, but he was new and different and exotic, and she wanted him. If he stuck around much longer, he might just let her have him.

Conrad opened his computer and signed on to Iram, a message board he had often visited when the Silk Road still ran strong and true. Iram of the Pillars they had called it. A pun, for Iram was a lost city of the net, buried beneath the surface of the web in a place to those who knew it existed called the deep net.

Or, as Conrad preferred, the dark net.

There was freedom here. Or there had been before the FBI and ICE and NSA had found it. Now, he wasn’t so sure, and in truth, it was foolish for him even to come, even to dip his toe into the black waters. Dangerous and deadly if they were watching. But it was exciting, too. To be back in the deep.

Most people don’t know it, but the Internet is like an iceberg. The vast majority of people only ever see what is above the surface. But what lies beneath is so much bigger, and so much wilder. There is no law on the dark net. No rules. No limitations. Just vast possibility.

On that day, Conrad found one of those possibilities.

Among threads about 9/11 conspiracies, hacking conquests, and questionable porn, there was one that caught his eye. The title read simply,

How Lucky Do You Feel?

Conrad was intrigued. He felt quite lucky to be free at all. And it wasn’t just that fact that piqued his interest. The thread had no responses logged. In fact, it had no views. Unusual in a world where most threads were posted, buried in crass profanity, and relegated to the trash heap, all in mere minutes. And yet this one remained pristine, as pure as the snow that still fell outside. Conrad couldn’t help himself. He clicked the link. The thread opened, and a single sentence appeared on the screen.

Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres.

Conrad grinned. A riddle. A diversion. He opened his bag and removed a notebook, plopping it down on the table next to his laptop. He poured beer from the flagon into his stein and took a long draw. He knew the sentence. He had taken Latin before coding had become his second tongue, and it had been the first thing they translated in Mr. Wheelock’s class.

All Gaul is divided into three parts, the first line of one of Julius Caesar’s most famous works. It was the only clue he needed.

Conrad wrote out the sentence carefully in his book, sure to leave enough space between each letter. The thread was a test, he figured. And thus this sentence was most likely a code. A Caesar cypher, to be exact. A simple puzzle, certainly, but a little bit of fun, nonetheless.

A Caesar cypher was easy enough to crack if you knew what you were looking for. Just move up or down the alphabet a set number of spaces for each letter and, voila, secret message uncovered. Caesar himself had used a down shift of three spaces, so that’s what Conrad tried, too. He counted in his head, even though he knew there were programs that could do this for him in an instant. But that would be cheating and he wanted to work through this riddle himself.

He leaned back in his chair and looked down at what he had produced.

Doo Jdxo lv glylghg lqwr wkuhh sduwv.

It looked like gibberish, and it was. Normally, you started with the gibberish and went the other way. But Conrad had a feeling that this particular code wasn’t for reading.

He typed the letters carefully into his browser—one specially designed for navigating the dark net—and hit enter. The machine worked for a moment. And then . . . nothing. Just an error message. Conrad frowned, drumming his fingers on the table. That should have worked, he thought. Perhaps it was alpha-numeric. He ran the phrase through a program that assigned a value, 1-26, to each letter. Not cheating, he thought. Just a shortcut.

He frowned again. It was a lot of digits.

4-15-15 10-4-24-15 12-22 7-12-25-12-7-8-7 12-17-23-18 23-11-21-8-8 19-4-21-23-22

He doubted anything this long would represent a web address. Still, he dutifully typed it in anyway and hit enter. But his fears were confirmed. They came to nothing. He rubbed his chin and stared at the screen. Maybe he had made a mistake, gone wrong from the beginning. Maybe he shouldn’t have translated the phrase to begin with. He looked at the numbers again. Studied them. And then he noticed something he had not seen before; several of them were primes.

7,7,7,17,23,23,11,19,23

Somehow, he knew he had found it. He typed the numbers into his browser. The screen went black and he grinned. Words began to appear, one letter at a time, as if they were being seared into the screen while he was reading them.

Well done, but a child could have solved that riddle. The test is not of your mind, but of your soul. Not of your intellect, but of your spirit. Will you be the master of your fate? The truth is far down the rabbit hole. How deep are you willing to go?

Conrad shuddered. It was a common enough phrase, he told himself. Surely it had nothing to do with his past, with the name that had made him famous, even if anonymously so. And yet, as the cursor blinked at him, something told him it was no coincidence. That somehow, whoever this was, they knew. It wasn’t the FBI, though. Somehow he knew that too. It was something much more interesting . . . and dangerous.

He typed the only thing that came to mind in response to the questions.

Down, down, down.

The screen flashed white and then back to black. A cascade of numbers, letters, and arcane symbols poured from the top of the screen, filling it quickly before rolling down in waves. For several minutes they continued to appear, the scroll bar on the side shrinking with startling speed. By the time they had finished, Conrad guessed the code that now seemed to go on forever numbered in the millions of characters. It was utterly unintelligible, except for a message written at the top of the screen.

There is music in the noise, beauty in the chaos, truth in the lies, light in the void. He who has eyes, let him see.

The curser flashed beneath. Conrad understood. Hidden in this mass of text, of gibberish, was a message. But he needed the right key to find it.

Conrad considered closing out and going to bed, maybe seeing if the cute barmaid was still up, leaving this behind before he did go too far down whatever rabbit hole he had stumbled upon. Considered it so strongly that he actually grasped the top of his laptop screen and began to pull it shut. But in the end, he couldn’t. The need to know had always been what had driven him, both to great heights of ability and infinite depths of obsession.

And if he stopped, where would that leave him? Waiting here until someone found him? Until the authorities tracked him down? Who would be the master of his fate then? The captain of his soul?

A light clicked on in Conrad’s brain. Without thinking, his hands went to the keyboard and he typed,

Invictus.

The data on the screen began to reform. Blocks of text moved around, swirling, reordering, recombining. Then it settled on an image—three women. Then, it reformed again, changing into line after line of text. But not random letters. Words. Sentences. Conrad started at the screen for a full five minutes before he realized it was a story. There was only one thing he could think to do.

He began to read.

Zero at the Bone

By

Harry Shannon

A NARROW FELLOW IN THE GRASS

A narrow Fellow in the Grass

Occasionally rides—

You may have met Him—

did you not

His notice sudden is—

The Grass divides as with a Comb—

A spotted shaft is seen—

And then it closes at your feet

And opens further on—

He likes a Boggy Acre

A Floor too cool for Corn—

Yet when a Boy, and Barefoot—

I more than once at Noon

Have passed, I thought, a Whip lash

Unbraiding in the Sun

When stooping to secure it

It wrinkled, and was gone—

Several of Nature's People

I know, and they know me—

I feel for them a transport

Of cordiality—

But never met this Fellow

Attended, or alone

Without a tighter breathing

And Zero at the Bone—

-Emily Dickinson

* * *

My name is Mike and I’m an addict and an alcoholic.

The group of men said, Hi, Mike.

I want to forget. Dolan looked down. His burn-scarred hands lay still on the cheaply laminated brown podium. He felt calm. Not long ago he would have been shaking like a teenaged boy opening his first blouse. He closed his eyes for a long moment then opened them again. The small room was crowded and smelled like unwashed males who’d been chain smoking. It was raining outside and the heater was on. Someone flushed the toilet at the back of the room and pipes rattled behind the peeling brown wallpaper.

Dolan said, I want to forget but I can’t.

A man whispered, Amen.

I started going to meetings in rehab, Dolan continued. I hated them at first. Hey, who’d want to hang out with a bunch of assholes like you?

The men chuckled politely. A white-haired old guy in overalls came out of the bathroom, zipping his fly. His name was Adam Gordon and he was a retired electrician with seventeen years of sobriety. He scurried across the back row and parked himself in an empty chair.

I was in a bad place for a long time, Dolan said. They gave me some pretty intense therapy in rehab, along with some medications I didn’t like at all. I guess I was pretty messed up. I got better after that. Even though I’d still rather forget, I’ve been putting my mind back together bit by bit for nearly a year now.

Someone in the second row cracked his knuckles. A skinny teen speed freak responded to the abrupt noise by twitching. His metal folding chair squeaked like a mouse caught in a trap. Someone else whispered for everyone to be quiet.

I’m supposed to tell you what it was like, what happened, and what it’s like now, Dolan said. So I guess that’s what I should do.

The men waited patiently.

Here’s what it was like before. Dolan cleared his throat. My dad was in the navy. He drank himself to sleep every night but never told us why. A lot of you guys know the story. He also beat us pretty bad sometimes. My mother left finally, just when I started high school, and then it was just the two of us fighting, the old bull and the young bull. Except this time, the young bull was the more ruthless one. One Saturday night, he got me really good, blacked up my right eye and made me reset a broken nose. I waited until he was passed out and just flat kicked the shit out of him. He could hardly move when he woke up. I told him I’d do it again every time he went to sleep unless he left me alone. He stayed off my case after that. It focused his mind pretty good. He happily signed for me when I went into the navy at seventeen. I never spoke to him again. He shot himself a few years back and nobody buried him because nobody gave a shit. I didn’t cry. I haven’t cried since I was little kid.

Dolan cleared his throat. The men listened intently.

Okay. Here is what happened. I became a drunk too. I went for Special Ops early on. I made it, so there’s a bunch of shit I can’t talk to any of you men about. I’m not trying to hide anything, but I ended up in a branch of the service where most of the stuff we did was off the record. A lot of people died and sometimes it was the wrong people, not that a government ever wants to admit that. That shit really changed me. I’m not the first swinging dick who ever felt that way, and I won’t be the last. I know that. I heard lots of stories like mine at the VA and again in rehab.

Dolan shut his eyes again and the world went black, but only for a second or two before it blew up in rage. He saw the multi-colored smear of tracer fire and heard screams of agony and felt the crunching thump of mortar rounds striking the earth. That last mission had been a horror show and the experience had stayed fresh in his brain along with every mistake he’d ever made and every life he’d taken. The past was out to get him. It was always happening in real time, like a video buried deep in the marrow of his bones.

Excuse me. Dolan opened his eyes and the room returned and the men snapped back into focus. A bead of sweat rolled down his face, seeking a path through the stubble on his chin.

I was drinking a lot, of course. I thought it helped me cope. I crawled through the grass and hid in the trees and I killed people with knives and guns and wires. I went to the desert more than a few times. I was good at my job, getting in and out of scary places to get heavy shit done. I became a pretty sneaky guy. In fact, the guys I worked with called me Snake. Look, I saw some things and I did some things. We were fighting in dirty little wars you didn’t know about back home, but to be honest, the combat wasn’t the real problem. The real problem was that I always dealt with it by drinking and doing drugs. In the end, you see, I wasn’t any better than my old man—not really, except that I didn’t beat up my own kid. Of course, I haven’t had that opportunity.

The clock ticked. Someone coughed and another man blew his nose as if in counterpoint. Dolan tapped his burned fingers on the podium. He continued. What I did was I beat up other men. Every chance I got, even back home. I fought hard and partied hard when the mission was over. I never questioned anything. I never cried. Never. Not in all those years, from my childhood on. Now I know that was a weakness in me and not a strength.

The electrician muttered, Amen to that, too.

Dolan said, So, what happened was the dude they called Snake was in his fair share of fire fights. He got real sick of it and drank a swimming pool worth of booze. Still, he did three tours straight up without complaining. So, eventually, when it was my turn to get my own shit blown up, bad leg and all, they shook my hand and told me thanks a lot for everything, here’s some money, but now it’s time to go home. I didn’t want to, but I had to come back to the world. So I did. I came here. Back here to the States.

Thunder rumbled in the distance and Dolan heard the first rain drops ticking gently on the window pane. He felt his mouth going dry. The hard part was coming. The clock on the wall ticked forward remorselessly, steadily marking time as if alerting him to the approach of his own death. He wanted to forget, but the meetings kept forcing him to remember.

I was home. But now I had no idea what to do or how to live. I wasn’t Snake anymore. I was just another vet. It was… difficult.

The men listened and waited. Some of them already knew what was coming.

The thing is, I understand the truth now, Dolan said. The problem wasn’t that I went to war. The problem was that I never came back.

And now a few of the men nodded together, like a bunch of puppets, and that simple gesture of solidarity communicated a level of understanding many of the other guys could not share. The support from the vets was palpable and it touched Dolan and enabled him to continue.

A few years ago, I got married to a girl I’d known in high school, Dolan said. Her name was Phyllis. She made me promise to stop drinking so I white knuckled it. I stopped. We got pregnant pretty quickly. I was working nights back then. See, the sunlight hurt my eyes and made me jumpy. Loud noises threw me off. I felt a lot safer at night. Some of you understand that.

More nods from the vets.

Guys, I need to get the rest of this out quickly. The thing is, I started boozing again, and then one night, I was pretty bombed by the time I got home. There was somebody in the house, somebody who broke in while Phyllis was there alone. The cops said he was likely about to rape her just when I got there, but apparently, that hadn’t happened yet. She was probably knocked out cold by then and her nightgown had been torn off. I was hammered and I came in loud and stupid and too damn drunk to know what was going on. I caught a glimpse of a big man wearing a stocking mask. The guy sucker punched me. He clubbed me and dumped my ass on the living room floor. He had a gas can with him and for some fucking insane reason started a fire just as he left.

Some of the men in the room who already knew this story started to wipe their eyes. Dolan’s face remained expressionless, though his voice got a lot huskier. He did not cry. He rubbed his temples.

I tried to make it to the bedroom, Dolan said. God knows I did. I tried my best to get her out. It was too hot and they told me she was already gone by then anyway, probably from the smoke inhalation and the blow to the head. Not from the flames, thankfully. Me, I got these burns on my hands and lower arms, but that was it because drunks are lucky that way for some reason. The fire department showed up just in time and dragged me out of there and an EMT treated the burns or it might have been too late to keep my fingers.

He was on the verge of babbling now, so Dolan slowed down to take a breath. What it’s like now? Well, now is that I am sober almost nine months. I’ve worked my steps. I don’t want to drink or get high again though I know this is a one-day-at-a-time proposition. I’ve made friends and want to go on. I can’t say I’ve accepted everything exactly, but at least I’ve stopped hating myself every day for what happened. I would give anything to bring my wife back and make up for my mistakes but that’s not the way life is. That’s not the way things work. So I want to forget, but I can’t.

More thunder, much closer than before. The rain was pouring down now, drops tapping on the roof like a line of Irish dancers. Lightning flashed outside, and a fork of shadows ran down the meeting room wall. Dolan decided he had nothing more to say, so he brought his share to a close.

The shrinks tell me it wasn’t my fault. Not her death or the war, any of it. They say that it makes no sense for me to brood any longer. They say that sometimes shit just… happens. You know something? They’re right. In the end, it was just like all those times in action when my friends got hit or died instead of me. In the end, the sad truth about life is that it often comes down to simple random chance. It did that time. So I lived and Phyllis died.

Dolan closed his eyes. And so did our unborn child.

Dolan left to sit down. The men applauded him but a fresh rumble of thunder drowned them out.

* * *

Big storms came and went for most of the week. Dolan found a room at a sober living house but only stayed there for two nights. The other guys in the room farted a lot and talked about sex and wanting to get high again. Dolan was fed up with that mindset. He wanted space of his own and longed for genuine solitude. He found a cheap apartment on the edge of the barrio and slept there instead. It smelled like dog shit and damp wood, but it was near the back stairs so he could come and go without having to talk to anyone. He ran a lot and found some ways to work out without equipment, but mostly at night.

During the day, Dolan went through the newspapers and down to the unemployment office looking for work. Nothing good came up. He figured the circles under his eyes and his burned hands and the long stint in rehab had something to do with not getting hired, but by this time, Dolan didn’t really give a damn. He could just get by on his small check from the government, so being out of work wasn’t the end of the world. Eventually, he’d need to find a job, but there was no rush.

The solitude helped. Dolan felt better away from other men, and though he bought a porn magazine for his room, in reality he’d pretty much lost the taste for sex, much less a girlfriend. His dark superstitions told him he was nothing but bad luck for women, just like his old man. It wouldn’t be fair to get involved, and it just wasn’t his way to go and hire someone.

He still hadn’t cried, but Dolan survived. In time, he tapered off going to AA meetings. The constant stream of sad stories began to wear him out. He couldn’t produce enough empathy to sustain them. He was also getting sick of the sound of his own voice. In truth, Dolan didn’t care to feel anything anymore. He wanted to stay under the radar, maybe make some extra money and figure out some way to move on with his life. Most of all, he just wanted to forget.

The big storms stopped eventually but rain visited on and off, and the air stayed crisp and cold as if snow was coming soon. That sounded nice, the idea of having a white Christmas. The snow made everything seem clean and quiet. It wasn’t long before Dolan went back to staying up all night and sleeping during the day. That was better than trying to fit in and talk to people. He got books from the library and read until his eyes burned. He slept at dawn. Ear plugs blocked the traffic noise and sheets of tinfoil taped to the window kept the sun out.

Dolan walked a lot, especially late at night when the dimly lit streets were empty. The city smelled nice right after the rain. Most of the time staying sober wasn’t that difficult. Sometimes the liquor store on the corner winked at him with neon eyes as he walked down the sidewalk. Snake Dolan thought of it as a painted whore riddled with disease and he gave it a wide berth. Eventually, he walked in there to buy a candy bar or some beef jerky and prove to himself that he didn’t have to buy any booze. The cold bottles of beer still twinkled in the harsh light and whispered obscene things Dolan couldn’t quite make out. One night, he came close to getting a six-pack but he bought a newspaper instead. He stopped going inside unless it was absolutely necessary.

Dolan knew he had to get busy and find work soon or he’d end up taking another trip down nightmare alley. He took the newspaper for a stroll down to the all-night coffee shop to look at the want ads. He always skipped the front page and the stories about the sagging economy and the dysfunctional government he’d once been willing to die for because the whole politics thing threatened his serenity. He just folded the paper to the ads and stuck it under his arm. He walked on.

The sidewalk was damp with rain and a bum in the shadows near the glass entrance asked him for money for food. Dolan searched his pockets and found a few bills and some coins; he handed the change over, but it was only fifty cents or so. The man muttered something obscene and decidedly ungrateful under his breath.

The old restaurant was almost empty. A pair of stoners sat in the back, pigging out on apple pie and ice cream, and a wino wandered in to steal some crackers and take a piss in the men’s room. Dolan sat down at the counter. The waitress was old enough to be his grandmother. She wore thick glasses and had white, pimpled skin like a plucked chicken. She looked ridiculous in her little skirt and white apron. Her name tag read AMY. Dolan called her by her name, borrowed a pen, and asked for a cup of black coffee. He had a twenty, a five, and a one in his pocket. He broke the five paying for the coffee.

The place was old with red plastic booths patched in spots by electrical tape. Fake plants managed to droop as if dying of thirst. The windows were dirty. Insipid music flowed from hidden speakers—some old songs he remembered from high school re-played by a mediocre, slightly out of tune orchestra.

Amy brought Dolan his cup. It tasted like thirty-weight motor oil. Dolan poured in sugar, stirred, and sipped anyway. He scanned the newspaper ads and circled the ones that looked promising. Some construction stuff that didn’t require a particular set of skills, a phone sales job you could supposedly do from home, and a few other things that seemed legit. One ad was circled in black and popped off the page because it had a tiny globe covered with small dots. The miniature logo reminded Dolan of the waitress and her weird skin.

LIMBUS, INC.

The word Limbus seemed vaguely familiar to Dolan, but he couldn’t have said why. Maybe he’d seen the logo somewhere over the last few days and just hadn’t noticed? Had he seen it on a billboard or stapled to a wooden pole or something? Studying the ad gave Dolan an odd, slightly queasy feeling of disorientation.

Amy returned to re-fill his cup and her approach startled him. Dolan thanked her and asked for some water and went back to reading

Reviews for Limbus, Inc. - Book II

[michael.parrish · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I received a free ebook copy of the book in exchange for a fair and honest reviewThe premise of the shadowy employment agency Limbus continues in this second volume of tales. I felt the tales in this volume were not of the same caliber as the stories in volume 1, but they were still well-done overall. The wrapper story doled out between each tale was handled well, but the true belle of the ball was Maberry's offering "Three Guys Walk into a Bar" which blends his Pine Deep, Echo Team, and Sam Hunter universe in a story that closed out the volume in a tense action-fest...in other words, traditional Maberry fashion. That story alone would make this book worth the cover price.Fans of the Maberry or Volume 1 of the series will find a lot to love here. There's tales aplenty by other recognizable authors such as Braunbeck, McKinney, and Lansdale among others. The stories span genres, so it's hard not to find something to love in this book.

[jldarden · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I won this book in a giveaway in exchange for a review. Sadly, I liked the first "Limbus" collection more than this one. It was entertaining but the writing in this collection was not as good. The exception to this was contributor Jonathon Maberry, involved in both these collections. He is a prolific horror writer and in his story he gathers together 3 of his series protagonists in a tale of genetic terrorism. It is the standout story in this collection. If you like short horror this collection is ok, but seek out the first "Limbus".

[mattdocmartin · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Add me to the list of folks that haven't read book one, but, based on this book, certainly will. Nice collection of stories with a bit of actual creep to them, all under the banner of the mysterious Limbus, Inc. If you enjoy mystery and horror, check this out. And get the first book, too!

[ltcl_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Take some of the five most talented scary guys out there writing and put their keyboards to work and you are left with a really frightening look at a company that might want to think twice about joining. "Limbus Inc." is the name on the business card that suddenly finds its way into the hands of those that need saving the most. Many times it is when they are on their last nickel, seeing the bottom of the glass of that last drink or wondering if life is worth it when the card falls into their hands with the cryptic words - How lucky do you feel? Whatever the job, they agree to do it because they have no choice. Part CIA, part Dr. Who, this strange company changes people's lives and then pays handsomely. We don't know how long the job will last or if Limbus employees feel better afterward but we do know it is one interesting ride. Each author's style is incorporated into the central story but they write about one new employee. This is the second edition and while you will enjoy the book regardless if you read the first one, I am going to go back and read it to see how the company came about. Thanks to LibraryThing for a chance to read the advance copy of what is due out in October.

[dirkbontes-1 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

This book is a bundle of five stories that are presented within the frame of another story consisting of a well written five page Prologue - "Český Krumlov" - various Interludes between the stories and a brief Epilogue. I have no idea who wrote this frame story; possibly the editor Brett J. Talley.This bundle is the second in a shared world series."Zero at the Bone" by Harry Shannon starts with the long poem "A narrow fellow in the grass" by Emily Dickinson; this poem does not actually add anything to the story, so it is definitely superfluous and ought to have been scrapped. The poem is followed by a boring three page confession by the protagonist Mike Dolan; I skipped most of it. This introduction killed any interest I might have in the book. However, feeling obliged to review, I read on. The story, though, was good and pulled me along. The ending connected back to the introduction and was well done. I still think, though, that its boring three page introduction ought to be deleted; and the poem as well. Neither do I have any idea why this story has the title it was given."Fishing for Dinosaurs" by Joe R. Lansdale was a good read, though with an unexpected and unwelcome twist. Apparently the story got stuck at some point and then got switched to another track."Lost and Found" by Joe McKinney was well written as well."The Transmigration of Librarian Blaine Evans" by Gary R. Braunbeck is about a middle-aged, ill librarian who became a killer / spy who kills lots of people. It was a good read.The final, near one hundred page story, according to the contents column titled "Three Guys Walk into a Bark" by Jonathan Maberry, actually has the title "Three Guys Walk into a Bar". I have no idea why the story has this title, except that somewhere in the story three of its characters walk into a bar and start to converse like old women in a knitting circle. This final story has 52 chapters; how crazy can you get... The frequent chapters from the point of view of the enemy or enemies are all in cursive. Characters are added and added and added. The story does have its moments and parts of it might be made into a movie. However, I would not have published it and in my opinion incorporating it into the bundle reflects poorly on the editor.I noticed a few errors in the writing of various stories:Conrad started at the screenWe have been nudging you our directionThe women threw openIt look to BlaineI must say that the bundle feels a bit contrived and forced. I suspect that Braunbeck's and Maberry's stories were not written for the bundle, but later adapted for it and dumped into it.I do think that there are much better books and stories in the world. This bundle is strictly for those who after a hard day's work want to come home, fall down on the couch and indulge in some mindless reading.

[steelyshan · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Let me start by saying I have not yet read the first Limbus book. I received this book through Librarything Early Reviewers program in exchange for a review. I am told that the reading experience would be enhanced by reading book one first, however this book still held up well as stand-alone. Limbus is a mysterious company that hires people who are basically on their last legs....completely down and out. They all have some skill set that is valuable to Limbus which appears to alter events in time to change history. I don't want to give too much away, so I will just say that each storyteller in this book brings their own fresh set of horrific views, but they all mesh into a cohesive storyline. The story is a roller-coaster of emotion, I felt horrified at times and other times I actually cried happy tears for the characters. A truly great read by some of the top writers in the horror genre today.

[vijayalakshmiharish · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

October isn’t October without a spine-chilling, spooky read. The second Limbus anthology –Limbus Inc. Book II is the perfect book for Halloween month.For those who enjoy science fiction, fantasy and horror, this book of short stories has a lot to offer. All the stories are set in the shared world in which Limbus Inc. operates. Shrouded in mystery, this secretive recruitment agency always finds the right person for the job.The five stories in this book edited by Brett J Talley are linked by one central story of a hacker in hiding who is following a trail down a rabbit hole in the ‘deep web”.The first story, Zero at the Bone by Harry Shannon, is about an army veteran who must make a choice –to forget or not to forget. Just as I thought I knew what was happening, this story threw a surprising curve ball.In the second short story by Joe Lansdale, one revisits a classic science fiction idea (I shan’t tell you which one—no spoilers!) as one joins the protagonist in Fishing for Dinosaurs. In Lost and Found by Joe McKinney, an alcoholic cop trying to cope with the loss of his family is hired to find a man and save a life. But who must he find and whose life will be saved?Gary Braunbeck writes about a man on the way to godhood in The Transmigration of Librarian Blaine Evans.Finally, in my favourite story, Three Guys Walk into a Bar Jonathan Maberry, a private investigator with a secret, a badass cop and a super secret agent solve a series of strange murders.The book is a fast, thrilling ride. I completed it in a matter of hours, and not just because I’m a fast reader. The stories keep you on the edge and the pages just fly beneath your fingers.I haven’t read the first Limbus book, but this one makes me want to go read it. If you are looking for a fantastic adventure in your next book, Limbus Inc.-Book II is just the book for you. FTC disclaimer : I received a free ARC of this this book from LibraryThing EarlyReviewers.

[cranjetta · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I wasn't 100% sure what to think when I received this book because it was the second book and I had not read the first. However, I was surprised by how good the book was and that I didn't actually need to read the first one to understand what was going on in this book. I really enjoyed that there was an overall story about a hacker who was essentially "reading" each of the self contained stories in throughout. It was an interesting way to tie all the stories together to showcase the larger picture while also bringing that character into the fold, or introducing him to this shadowy company called Limbus. Each of the self contained stories were equally enjoyable. They fluctuated from what appears to be spy thriller material into science fiction and fantasy pretty flawlessly. The only author included in this anthology whom I have read was Jonathan Maberry and I was excited that the story he wrote included a character I knew and had followed in other books. It was nice to read a small Joe Ledger adventure which basically tied this character to other characters and books by other authors essentially creating a Marvelesque like universe where each of these characters are somehow part of the same world. I have made a point of making sure that I placed the first book into my wishlist on Amazon.

[teria2m · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Limbus, Inc. is an employment agency that selects you. This book is a collection of five stories about the men Limbus selects and the jobs they receive. Each story presents a different view of what happens when you go to work for Limbus. I was surprised at how each story grabbed my attention, especially since I'm not normally drawn to stories centered primarily on men who are basically alone in the world. Take a chance and step into the world of Limbus to see how lucky you do feel.

[pratchettfan · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Limbus Inc. is a shady employment agency who prides itself to always find the right person for the right job. Targeting the downtrodden and out-of-luck, those jobs are often quite difficult and dangerous, but the reward in the end can be more than imagined.So ask yourself: "Do you feel Lucky?"The book consists of five short stories which are tied together by Limbus Inc and a story about a hacker who seeks asylum in a small Czech Town.The short stories range from time-traveling sci-fi to noir detective/horror and are all very intriguing.I finished the book very quickly and greatly enjoyed it. A must read for everyone who liked the first book in the series. And worth checking out for everyone looking for noir stories with varying topics.

[ladyoflorien_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed Limbus, Inc.'s second collection (but not quite as much as the first). The tales were nicely tied together and "Three Guys Walk into a Bar" was the highlight of the collection.

[dakota1116 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

its about chezy and how they are backwards

[helcura_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

You don't need to have read the first Limbus collection to enjoy this book of short stories by various authors all set in a common world where an unusual employment agency offers the desperate a job . . .I enjoyed all of the stories in the book, though I wished there had been at least one written by a woman. This is very much a book about men, and told very much from a man's perspective. The stories are mostly well written, and mostly edited well, with one exception, which stands out for the word misuse and spelling errors that the other stories don't have. I cared about the main characters and enjoyed each author's twist on the shared theme. Like the first book, it takes a great concept and gives a variety of authors a chance to run with it.Very much worth reading and owning.

[jeffv_19 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The second volume of short stories (well, this one includes a novella) involving interesting work assignments doled out by the shadowy recruitment firm, Limbus. Limbus' motto is "We employ" and assignments range from the mundane but bizarre to the supernatural. For some who are down on their luck, Limbus offers redemption, fixing them up with a job uniquely suited to them. Lumbus also seeks the perfect candidate for jobs in hand. Some refuse and yet do Limbus' bidding anyway. Limbus always pays well, just not always in cash or other valuables. The authors in this book, Mayberry, Lansdale and Braumbeck are Journalstone staples. Two books in, this reminds me a bit of the Thieves World series in the early 80's -- a small number of characters are recurring and the novella continues a character introduced in Volume 1. Like the first book, the tales are told as par of a recruiting campaign targeting a wary candidate during a meta-story told in interstitial between stories. . Some of the stories have a Twilight Zone vibe, while the novella involves werewolves.

[pixiedark · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I received this book from Library Thing Early Reviewers. I thought Limbus, Inc. II by Jonathan Maberry, Harry Shannon, Gary A. Braunbeck, Joe R. Lansdale, and Joe McKinney to be exciting and full of variety. Limbus II is a sequel to Limbus Inc. Limbus Inc is a very unique employment agency. Recruiters offer contracts for employment tailored exactly to the job seeker in question. But a word to the wise. . . it's always a good idea to read the fine print.

[saginawhorror · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Limbus Inc Book II just like volume 1 I just tore through. A book about a strange Employment agency. My favorite stories were Three Guys Walk into a Bar by Jonathan Maberry and Zero at the Bone by Harry Shannon. Although I enjoyed them all. I highly recommend both Limbus Inc. Books and eagerly await book 3.

[yoyogod · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Limbus, Inc.: Book II has got a really great lineup of contributors. Joe Lansdale is one of my favorite writers. I've enjoyed eyerything I've read by Jonathan Maberry. I've generally enjoyed Gary Braunbeck's Cedar Hill stories. I've only read a couple of Harry Shannon's books, but I thought they were pretty good. I haven't read anything else by Joe McKinney, but he seems to be reasonably popular.With that lineup, this book must be good, right? Yes, it and no. As with the previous book, I really don't think it really hangs together very well as a shared world story collection. Limbus is supposed to be a sort of pandimensional employment agency. The problem I have is that in some of the stories Limbus seems to be fairly benevolent, but in others it is utterly malevolent. The stories themselves are mostly good though.Maberry fan's will probably really enjoy his story, which is a crossover with Sam Hunter (from the previous Limbus book) going to Pine Deep (which Maberry wrote a trilogy about) and teaming up with Joe Ledger (who is the star of Maberry's most popular series). Joe Lansdale tells a story about a shadow government, a dinosaur hunt, and the Hollow Earth, with Allan Quartermain making an appearance. Gary Braunbecks story, which I found disappointing, was about a librarian who is kidnapped by Limbus and turned into a slightly more psychotic version of James Bond. Harry Shannon's tale is about an alcoholic who gets a job involving time travel and a quest for redemption. Joe McKinney's story is also about an alcoholic on a quest for redemption, only with a ghost instead of time travel.Realistically, I think most people would be less bothered by Limbus's ambiguous nature than I am, and the stories are really good, so I'd say that you should read this book.

[virasana123 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Limbus Inc.-Book II is a good follow-up to the original Limbus Inc., and best of all, you don’t have to read the first one to enjoy it.Limbus Inc. Book II has the same supernatural and horror feel as the first one. The only story that I didn't really like was “Fishing for Dinosaurs”. For me, it had an unsatisfying ending. As I progressed thorough the book; however, I found myself wondering if there would be a story that would really grab my attention, and then, I started to read the last part: “Three Guys Walk into a Bark”. This section had some great concepts, but unfortunately, I felt the ending didn't truly complete the story. The conclusion just fizzled out in the end.Overall, the book is a good read, but I think that some of the stories could have been developed a little better.

[isabelx_21 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I had never known a woman like her. Enigmatic strong, purposeful, and someone with a bit of dinosaur fishing experience.This book follows the same format as the first Limbus Inc, book, with a frame story plus several novellas telling separate stories, and I enjoyed this book better than the first (possibly because it didn't start with a story about a slaughterhouse worker). This time the frame-story is right up to date, telling the tale of a hacker hiding out in Eastern Europe after the Dark Net is infiltrated, who finds stories about Limbus, Inc. appearing on his computer screen. I was happy that private investigator Sam Hunter made a reappearance, with his particular skill set leading Limbus to hire him for a second time to help the police investigate a series of murders, and who could resist a story called "Fishing for Dinosaurs"?I stopped fighting a fight I couldn't win, and instead darted my head forward and bit his throat. I was in full wolfshape, and if my muscles weren't as powerful as his amped up physique, my jaws were. Wolf jaws were always stronger than wolfman jaws. My family's genetics don't go back to Canis lupis, Most werewolves do, we don't. We Benandanti are in a direct line from Canis dirus. The massive, prehistoric Dire Wolves. No canine predator in history had a stronger bite. And as werewolves, we get something extra added to the package.

[alanbethcam_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I was quite surprised that I enjoyed this book. I realized after I received it that is was a sequel to a book that I absolutely hated. I dutifully read it anyway. I found that this go around, the story-telling was much tighter, the theme was less disjointed, and the characters (in most of the the stories) were actually likeable. I would almost be interested in a Limbus III.

[davros410 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I must predicate my review by disclosing that I received this e-book as an Early Reviewers copy from LibraryThing in return for a review in August last year, but I only just read it. Having read the first Limbus book a couple of years ago I knew what to expect, but I still found the use of an employment agency - which always finds the right person for the right job no matter how strange or how expensive - as an overall connecting framework for a series of short stories innovative and interesting. The stories here are an eclectic mix, with the only thing in common the linking idea that the protagonist has been hired for a specific job by Limbus Inc. "Three Guys Walk Into A Bar", the final story in the book, involves the same character as one of the stories in the first Limbus Inc. book, a private investigator who is remarkably suited to the type of job Limbus has found for him because he is a werewolf, is the one I enjoyed the most. The horror has been scaled down a bit from the story in the first book to its advantage. Coming close was "The Transmigration of Librarian Blaine Evans" which immediately precedes it. The story of a meek and mild librarian who hits rock bottom after his wife and children leave him and is hired by Limbus and retrained as a stone cold killer, but is then sent on what might be just one job too many. The connecting story of Conrad, a hacker looking into the dark web where he finds each of the stories in the book is also interesting. As he unlocks and reads each story his paranoia rises. Very highly recommended.

[pennadams-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This book is comprised of five short stories loosely linked by short interstitial chapters. They all follow the same basic structure. A down on their luck or otherwise downtrodden person is recruited by a shadowy agency under mysterious circumstances. Each story is by a different author, all accomplished in the horror genre.The stories themselves are all competent, if not groundbreaking. The shared setting lends them a little more intrigue than they would likely possess on their own. I was not enraptured but not disappointed either. Thoroughly ok.

[carl_alves_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Limbus, Inc. Book 2 is a shared anthology featuring some heavy hitters in the horror genre, masterfully edited by Brett Talley. Weaving into all of these stories is a shadowy hiring agency called Limbus Inc. that seems to find just the right people for a given job provided they are desperate enough to take it. The interludes that weaved in between the stories were probably my favorite part of the book. They followed a hacker who was being fed the same stories that the reader was reading. In the process, he was being lured in to work for the organization.As for the stories, for the most part, they were high quality. The one that didn’t work for me was the one written by Gary Braunbeck. “Three Guys Walk Into a Bar”, written by Jonathan Maberry was a cool tale that features some of the characters in the series of novels that he writes thrown in together to stop an evil plot to manufacture werewolves to fight for rogue foreign governments was pretty cool. But my favorite story would have to be “Lost and Found” by Joe McKinney. It’s a story about a man down and out after losing his wife from a terrible murder who was given the opportunity to travel through time and save people who are about to be killed. The flow of the stories was great. The concept is really cool and the execution was even better. I preferred Limbus Inc. Book 3, but this anthology is a winner that is well worth readingCarl Alves - author of Battle of the Soul

[beorn_se_bacaire · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I received this book as part of the Early Reviewers program for LibraryThing, in exchange for an honest review. I was selected to review the first Limbus Inc. book when it was offered through Early Reviewers, as well. As such, there will probably be references to Book One throughout my review.The overall layout of this, the second Limbus Inc. anthology is the same as book one; five stories or novellas, tied together by the shared, shady world of Limbus Incorporated, and by interludes of another character reading each story in turn. The stories are as follows:Zero at the Bone, by Harry Shannon: A veteran with PTSD, trying to cope with alcoholism and life, is offered a position with Limbus Inc. after “saving” a recruiter from a couple gangbangers. Upon accepting the job, the company messes around with his genes to make him stronger and faster. Strangely, this story actually has a happy ending…The story was…okay. The character was real, with real problems, just trying to cope. However, I don’t feel there was all that much suspense—you figured that the protagonist would manage to get through alright. His reward wasn’t what I expected, though, and I find that to be good. 3 stars.Fishing for Dinosaurs, by Joe R. Lansdale: Immortality potions, and Pellucidar. A homeless crook is recruited for a position to capture a plesiosaur…in the center of the Earth. But wait! not all is as it seems with the protagonist (well, it is Limbus Inc…). Some very familiar characters show up in here…This story was pulp fiction of pulp fiction. The author borrows characters and ideas from H. Rider Haggard (King Solomon’s Mines, and SHE); Jules Verne (Hollow Earth Theory); as well Kenneth Roberts (Doc Savage) and Edgar Rice Burroughs (Tarzan). I don’t feel that the characters he…borrowed…are particularly true to themselves, which is a major problem for me. The premise could have been good, but the story falls flat (although, it made me want to do some re-reading of the original fiction). 2.5 stars.Lost and Found, by Joe McKinney: A haunted cop, tormented by alcoholism, gets pulled over and recruited into a job to find somebody…before others do.Closure. That’s what this story is—is about closure of several cases. It reminded me of the first story in Limbus, Inc. book two, but for one thing…I couldn’t really tell how it would end, not with some of the emotions that were coming out of the protagonist. 3.5 StarsThe Transmigration of Librarian Blain Evans, by Gary A. Braunbeck: Oh, look. Another alcoholic for a main character. Blain Evens, when his life falls apart from depression—his wife leaves him, followed by his job suggesting a leave of absence—is forcefully recruited by Limbus to become a kind of super soldier. The story starts with him wrapping up a mission, and flashes back and forth between the period of his…transmigration…and the finishing of the mission.Finding this story to be better written than the others, I rather enjoyed it (other than one thing); I suspect that it was the changing between two different times, which helped draw me in. I do have one major problem, a factual one; on page 171 it says “…slipping into his specially-modified wetsuit, inflating it, strapping on his air tank (etc.)…”. I suppose it’s possible that the wetsuit was modified for inflation, but a dry suit would do the job of under-ice diving far better. 4 stars (and a bit).Three Guys Walk into a Bar, Jonathan Maberry: For readers of the first Limbus Inc book the character will seem rather familiar; this is the only author who returned to write for book two, and he used the same character. With a series of gruesome murders in small town Pennsylvania, Limbus hires him as a consultant. In the end, multiple conspiracies are uncovered.As in Limbus, Inc. Book One, this was my favourite story. I tend to like Paranormal PI type novels (Dresden, Nightside, etc.), and this stands with them. 4.5 stars, and if the author decided to start a series of novels with this character, there is a chance I would buy it.As for the under arching Interludes, I feel they were constructed just fine. The writing was good, leading the character down the rabbit hole into the shady jobs of Limbus Inc., before finally offering him a job. Again, I think the character could have had more issues solving the clues, though.I found Limbus, Inc. Book Two, to be somewhat less horrific than the first—I would barely call it horror at all (compared to the first, where I was concerned about nightmares), but more along the lines of light Sci-fi (excepting the last. Maybe). I believe I would suggest reading book one before this, just to get a feel for the world, but don’t believe it is completely necessary. I did find the book enjoyable, but not as engrossing as the last; however, again, if there is a Limbus Inc, Three forthcoming, I will probably request it as well.The binding is tight, and I rather like the cover—I feel it’s extremely appropriate to the fictional company.