Interceptions

By C. C. Blake

The second pulse pounding issue of Pulptastic Adventures Quarterly presents a trio of action packed stories that explore thrilling storytelling. This issue explores interceptions, back-and-forth transfers of power between equal adversaries. In this issue:

A pickup delivers an unsuspecting Good Samaritan into the clutches of a seductive and deadly supernatural predator . . .

A rescue mission against dangerous cannibals leads a post-apocalyptic cop into a burg populated by killer mutants and ancient sorcery science gone awry . . .

A family exploits desperate measures to save their kidnapped child from an unspeakable evil . . .

Authors Kaysee Renee Robichaud, Daniel R. Robichaud, and C. C. Blake deliver three unforgettable tales guaranteed to deliver all the thrills, the wonder, the terror, and the action of the pulp yarns of yesteryear brought roaring into the twenty-first century!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Twice Told Tales II
• Release date: Apr 28, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463193402

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

Interceptions

Pulptastic Adventures Quarterly

Volume 2

Edited by C. C. Blake

Table of Contents

Killer Pickup by Kaysee Renee Robichaud

Betty In Sideshow by Daniel R. Robichaud

Baby's Gone by C. C. Blake

Note From the Editor

Killer Pickup

Kaysee Renee Robichaud

When trying to capture her feelings about the whole matter later, Clarice wrote: I sometimes can't believe it, but it happened.

#

A lightning flash illuminated white–eyes set into a straight off the boat from darkest Africa flesh–and then the darkness swept back in. Thank you for stopping, the stranger said, speaking loud enough to be heard over wind and thunder. He had a noticeable accent Clarice could not place, kind of British, kind of not. The stranger stood on the dirty embankment with the passenger side door open, letting the wind whip plenty of wet from the air and from him. The car's overhead light illuminated the hitchhiker's soaked, hunter green slicker. This was not a fit night for anything walking, crawling, or breathing to be out.

Don't just stand there with the door hanging open, Clarice said. The clock on her dashboard said it was just after eight o'clock, but with the storm it could have been the witching hour.

Both her hands squeezed the steering wheel with a white knuckle grip, trying not to freak out from all the urban legends shrieking in her head. The lessons had been repeated since childhood: Don't pick up hitchikers, they are probably killers. Don't trust anyone you don't know, they are probably rapists. Mom's cautionary tales.

This act of defiance against Mom's memory had been the main reason she pulled over in the first place. All right, the second reason. First was humanity, conscience, or the simple empathy for some poor bastard stuck on the road.

Am I invited? he asked.

I beg your pardon?

Please invite me.

The hell? She laughed and did as he requested, making a big gesture out of it. Who needed to be invited into a warm dry car on such a night? In such a storm?

Car trouble? she asked, while her new passenger got settled. I saw a van a few miles back.

A rape van according to Clarice's mom. The sort of thing that the other urban legend, the drivers in search of prey might use to acquire said prey making girls and children disappear forever and ever, amen. She thought: Mom was all about warning against the big cruel world. At least she had been before the big cruel world gave her a little pancreatic cancer diagnosis and six months of misery. Rape vans and murderous hitchikers had done nada. A little dark spot on an X-ray had done the dirty, sapping her strength, leeching her life force, and leading the way to a crematorium oven.

That was my ride, sure, the black man said. His smile was as white as his eyes, catching the colors of her dashboard lights and seeming to glow.

Seatbelt, she said, adding please, to be courteous.

Sure, he said. The belt slid across his sopping jacket and found its way into the buckle.

Nasty scar, she said, spying the white line across the back of his left hand. Then, she apologized for prying.

No, it is what you said, he said. I got it fighting. I was headstrong. Thought I could take the world with my own two fists. I'm more certain of my mortality these days. She found herself unable to glance away until he asked, To whom do I owe my life?

Clarice laughed and introduced herself, and her passenger waited to be asked before telling her his name was Joaquim. Yo-ah-kim, she repeated, making the word three syllables and finding the music within.

Joaquim was a good looking man, strong cheekbones and lovely eyes. It was his eyes that convinced her to pull over. When her headlights caught them and illuminated the rings of golden honey around his pupils, they seemed to blaze like fire. It should not have been, but it was one of those coincidental circumstances, those chance encounters. When he opened the door and stood there, his scent had leaked into the car before he slid in. The pleasing aromas of cedar smoke and musk aroused recollections of fireplaces and the things she had done before them–both the innocuous and the profane.

Thunder rumbled, reminding her that they had miles of rainy road to see before they were done. How far are you going? she asked, pulling her Volkswagen Jetta back onto the road.

As far as you'll take me, he said. He adjusted himself for more comfort. The rain dribbled off his slicker in streams at first. Then, individual droplets collected into the puddles at his feet.