The Twelve Coffins of Dr. Coffin

By Amy Spector

When Leo Wayland accepts a job as head of the new horror unit at Maiden Studios, he knows what is expected. Make cheap movies that earn their money back fast. It doesn't matter that he dislikes horror. He just needs to escape his assistant director's position at a rival studio.

But he didn't expect to be assigned a terrible title and a leading man, all before he even had a script, or that his leading man would be Everett Reid, the actor who rejected a very young Leo’s advances, only to disappear from movies altogether a few years later in a cloud of scandal.

Everett Reid will do anything for a chance to get back the career he lost and away from teaching at a theater camp for children. And if it means working with Leo Wayland again, he can do that too. Especially now that Leo is all grown up and not so untouchable.

With only three weeks, a flamboyant stage actor, twelve scantily clad women, and a sound stage full of coffins may not seem like the makings of something great. But really, that all depends on what you are hoping for.

• Language: English
• Publisher: JMS Books LLC
• Release date: Jul 30, 2022
• ISBN: 9781685502225

Amy Spector

Amy Spector grew up in the United States surviving on a steady diet of old horror movies, television reruns, and mystery novels.After years of blogging about comic books, vintage Gothic romance book cover illustrations, and a shameful amount about herself, she decided to try her hand at writing stories. She found it more than a little like talking about herself in third person, and that suited her just fine.She blames Universal for her love of horror, Edward Gorey for her love of British drama, and writing for awakening the romantic that was probably there all along.Amy lives in the Midwest with her husband and children, and her cats Poe, Goji and Nekō.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Ten Years Ago

Leo slipped into his leather shoes, pulled a shirt over his head, and tried hard not to remember the night before. It was impossible.

Last night, he’d kissed Everett Reid. Okay, it wasn’t exactly a kiss. It was a sloppy, hoppy-breathed attempt after a long day of shooting and a few too many beers.

Everett had been kind, but uninterested. Yet, it hadn’t escaped Leo the way Everett would sometimes look at him with those pale blue eyes, and how he would hunt him down on the set, and choose to spend lunch with him talking books in the cafeteria instead of keeping to his dressing room like most all the other actors did.

Tonight, not for the first time, Leo was supposed to help Everett practice lines, and he was certain he was going to die of embarrassment.

Or maybe Everett would try to kiss him this time, alone in his room, unlike in the bathroom of the smoky little bar, with the rest of the guys from the set waiting back at the table.

His heart pounded at the fantasy of it, and for the millionth time wished he had a little more experience. A movie star—well, maybe that went a bit too far, but certainly, an…actor—like Everett Reid was bound to have more than a few, and mostly awkward, fumbles in the park late at night. Shit, he’d probably had real relationships.

But Leo was not going to think about that. Not now. Instead, he grabbed his wallet, and the lunch he’d packed, and hurried out the door.

He lived on the second floor of the Palm, a U-shaped, two-story apartment building a few blocks away from the studio. It wasn’t a nice neighborhood, and the landlord had put bars on the doors, and a tall fence surrounding the courtyard, but it was close enough to the lot that he didn’t need to own a car.

One of the first-year studio marketing guys lived there too. A Robert Walls or Wales. Leo wasn’t sure. He was a few of years older than Leo, twenty-six to Leo’s twenty-one, but they got along well, and sometimes, if they ran into each other, they’d walk to the studio together.

Leo was pretty sure he liked men too. But they’d never spoken about it. It was just a feeling he got. Leo wasn’t comfortable enough to ask.

Today he was running a few minutes behind and had to walk the six blocks alone, which was fine with him. As much as he could have used the distraction, he was too much in his own head to be good company.

When he arrived, he was startled to see that Stage Four was in chaos. There was a lot of yelling, and the set the crew had worked hard on building the night before for an Everett Reid scene scheduled to shoot that morning was being torn down, and one of the Lia Kit scene sets was being set up in its place.

When Leo noticed a group of men in suits talking in hushed voices with the director, he grabbed at a passing lighting guy. Hey. What’s going on?

Reid’s gone. Leo blinked at him. Everett Reid quit the production. Called the director last night and just quit.

Can he do that? It was a stupid thing to ask. It was done. I mean…what happened?

I don’t know. The guy shrugged. He wanted out, I guess.

The bubble of anxiety that had taken up residence in Leo’s belly since the night before expanded, leaving his chest tight. Damn.

It’s probably for the best, anyway. Don’t you think?

At Leo’s blank look, the guy, Jimmy—or at least Leo thought his name was Jimmy—squinted at him.

You had to have noticed? The chemistry on the set?

No, I… Leo could feel himself start to go pink.

Everyone’s been saying. There’s no spark during Reid and Kit’s scenes together.

Oh, that chemistry. Yeah, I noticed. It seemed better at the start.

"If a guy can’t pull off