Down in the Drains, Part 1

By William Bitner

Descending into the hellish underworld of the drains to face the horrors lurking below, unnatural abominations like arachnocobras, spider bats, and supercrocs, is the stuff of nightmare. Human determination and courage pitted against a horde of mutant monstrosities constantly getting bigger, faster, more deadly. The only thing that could conceivably make conditions worse for those sentenced to clearing the drains would be if the horrors inhabiting them also began to get smarter...and started working together.
Down in the Drains is tough, fast paced futuristic adventure with depth and bite.

• Language: English
• Publisher: William Bitner
• Release date: Apr 19, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370260843

William Bitner

William Bitner is the author of six volumes of short stories, M is for Monster, T is for Thing, N is for Nightmare, Gone Where The Goblins Go, She Saw Dinosaurs, and Worlds Beyond, as well as a collection of song lyrics, Heavy Planet Man. He also collaborated with filmaker Daniel Boyd on the illustrated novel Death Falcon Zero Vs. the Zombie Sluglords and contributed to the graphic horror anthology series Chillers, based on the film from Troma. Since 2003 as the masked Death Falcon Zero he has wrestled over six hundred matches and won twenty championships in both the United States and Mexico. Recently married for the second time he is the father of two adult daughters and currently resides in Saint Albans, WV.

Book preview

Down in the Drains

By William Bitner

Death Falcon Press

2612 Winter Street

St. Albans, West Virginia 25177

http://williambitner.com/

© 2017 R. W. Bitner III

Another one for Annie.

Love you, sweetheart.

Contents

Foreword

One

Two

Foreword

If you’re familar with William Bitner’s writing, you probably think of him as that guy who writes all those scary short stories. Down in the Drains is his first novel, but you should know that it actually predates much of his work that’s already in print.

I read an initial draft of Down in the Drains back in the antediluvian days of the early 1980s. I thought it was quite good, and I was keen to get my hands on the completed book, but for reasons of his own, William set the project aside and went on to write, and do, many other things.

William Bitner revisited the Drains (in more ways than I care to go into here) in 2002, and after a bit of revising and renovating, he crafted it into the version that you’re about to enjoy. Self-publishing as we now know it was virtually unheard of at that time, with publishing outside of traditional channels carrying a vanity press stigma that a diminishing number of anachronists still cling to today. William diligently followed the conventional course and submitted Down in the Drains to a number of publishers of science fiction. One of them accepted and paid an advance, but after several years they decided not to take Drains to print. They didn’t ask for the advance back, which was a good thing, since the money was long since spent.

After getting his publishing rights back, William sent Down in the Drains off to an editor friend of a friend (it’s not just who you know, it’s who your friends know) at another large publisher. He received a positive response, though not an official acceptance. The editor had informal discussions with William on the possible timeline for publication and payment should her employer eventually decide to publish Drains. In short it would have been a long time before Drains saw