Book One: Wild In The Streets
A transgressive new book series that blurs the lines between crime, horror,
dark fantasy, and suspense
Date Published: 05-01-2022
Publisher: No Sell Out Productions
Lawlessness. Rampant crime. Ruthless gangs running wild in the streets. Welcome to Punk City… city under a perpetual moonless and starless night. The city of the Hell Bound Kids: one of the many gangs warring for control of Punk City’s hellish streets. A transgressive new book series that blurs the lines between crime, horror, dark fantasy, and suspense.
For the record, I had nothing to do with the Hell Bound Kids. Abraxas would have you believe I’m the one responsible for the murder spike and reduction in output, when in fact, it was his gross mismanagement of the city that caused the situation with the Kids to spiral out of control. — The Architect
It was another night full of the usual suspects. Cole Porter’s “Anything Goes” was playing on a pirate radio station when the dispatcher with the androgynous voice deadpanned over the rover again.
Detective Gacy grit his teeth.
He hummed “La Vida es un Sueño.” He focused on the rumbling engine of his unmarked Crown Vic… the bumps in the road… the interminable vanishing point ahead… even the cold dew soaking through the rain-streaked glass of the shut windows; but nothing helped block out the grating voice.
The dispatcher was only a lesser symptom of the unending grind of Gacy’s job. A job which dragged the Detective back night after night, preventing him from reaching his final destination. Its omnipresent shadow loomed over his head beginning the moment he departed Central Division. Taunting him: ‘The countdown’s begun. Soon, the Beast will find you. Dangle that well-deserved rest in front of your face. Only to snatch it away at the last second and saddle you with another homicide case. Another murdered Kid.’
The unnerving voice of the dispatcher yanked Gacy back to the city under a starless night.
It was an American city of the 90’s by all outward appearances (or most of it at least, molded from that decade). Some parts appeared to be a mash-up of different decades, different eras, beginning somewhere in the 1960’s, 1970’s, or thereabouts, and ending in the 2030’s; but in truth, the city had existed only for fifty years, and for only five eras: from Gold, to Silver, to Bronze, to Iron, to the final and present era of Iron and Clay. There was no moon—no stars. Only a black cloak of night. In the scarred streets lingered an unnatural emptiness. Streetlights reflected the tired body of the cruiser off the oily rain-slick streets and gutters. The drizzle relented an hour ago; now the dirty mixture of pollution and rain curdled the night air with a sweet-n-sour odor of sugared piss. The mists crept in from the sea, crawling over the city.
The request came again, with it, the weight of his responsibilities: a job that he couldn’t scrape off his shoes.
Gacy snatched up the mic. “Yeah. 53, go ahead.”
“233 28th Street. Anonymous call reporting 187 in the alley. First responders are on scene with the new Medical Investigator.”
“10-4.”
The Detective slammed down the mic. Hitting the brakes, he whipped the cruiser around, skidding to the other side of the street, the car’s reflection streaking again alongside the vehicle, through the gutters, bending and refracting in myriad colors under the streetlights, beneath the bright lights of the hulking Miesian glass and steel skyscrapers. East to west, Minos Highway crossed the black heart of the city. All the minor streets flowed to Minos, as though black arteries to a blacker aorta pumping pain and misery in place of life-sustaining blood, then the Highway disappeared, evanescing to the infinite black skyline.
South on Paradise Road, Gacy passed through Downtown and the recent Gaslight quarter.
It amazed him what a good job City Management had done cleaning up the area. Downtown—where most of the Adults and Projections lived—was no longer the ancient relic of bygone years. The new and improved was nothing like the old and squalid, when block after gang infested block of porn shops, liquor stores, and flophouses once crowded the chaotic streets. Before the City Management gentrified the locality, turning it into the Gaslight. And the pricey bars, hotels, and restaurants supplanted the old with the new. The college kids, yuppies, hipsters, socialites, and tourists replaced the bottom feeders. Gacy thought, even if they are mostly Projections, they’re still a better class of Projection.
It was another section of the city the Adults had reclaimed from the Kids, using crafty city ordinances to push out the punks. The city blocks of towering high-rises crowded the Gaslight. The usual Saturday night Projections were strangely missing. Mists or rain, the carousing Projections always came out in droves at this late hour. No vagrants camped on the damp sidewalks or huddled in doorways. No street traffic. Everything as still and silent as the grave.
Then, just like that, Paradise Road curved east, the streets transitioned. Downtown shrank away in fear and loathing. The glowing high-rises no longer rose up through the gray caliginous zone between the harsh luster of the Gaslight and the starless night pressing the bright lights down. Gacy reached the borders where the edges blurred; and the orderly streets conceded to a cesspool—to the Southeast sector beset by murderous Kids and worse.
About the Authors
Manson
Manson loves and hates everyone equitably. Though she’ll read just about
anything, she enjoys weird shit like Hunter S. Thompson. She also likes
crime fiction, the occult, horror, transgressive, science fiction, and dark
fantasy.
Anthony Perconti
Anthony Perconti lives and works in the hinterlands of New Jersey with his wife and kids. He enjoys well-crafted and engaging stories from across a variety of genres and mediums. His articles have appeared in several online venues as well as some indie press magazines such as Three Crows Magazine, Grimdark Magazine, Dark Matter Magazine & Pulp Modern. He can be found on Twitter @AnthonyPerconti
Sebastian Vice
Sebastian Vice is the founder of Outcast Press devoted to transgressive fiction and dirty realism. He writes a regular column for A Thin Slice of Anxiety called “Notes Of A Degenerate Dreamer,” and has poetry and short fiction published in Punk Noir Magazine, A Thin Slice Of Anxiety, Outcast Press, Terror House Magazine, and Bristol Noir. His flash piece “One Last Good Day” was nominated for Best Of The Net 2021.
Joe Haward
Joe Haward is an author, poet, and heretic. As a freelance journalist his work challenges religious and political corruption. Writing horror, noir, and transgressive fiction and poetry, his work can be found in various places. His debut poetry collection, Heresy (Uncle B. Publications) drops in 2022. Find him on Twitter @RevJoeHaward or at www.joehaward.co.uk.
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