Chelsea Avenue
Chelsea Avenue
Armand Rosamilia
DevilDog Press
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Authors Note
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Epilogue
About the Author
Also From DevilDog Press
Thank you
Copyright © 2015 by Armand Rosamilia
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover art by Dane @ebooklaunch
Created with Vellum
Special Thanks
* * *
First and foremost, always my mother for giving me the gift and love of reading horror books
* * *
My wife, Shelly, for being more supportive than a normal person should be... but I'm glad you are
* * *
Tammy Kelly, the inspiration for the Tammy character. The tough chick I remember since elementary school
* * *
All of the friends I've known over the years who've made it into this book in one way or another. Thanks for letting me kill you off one by one!
Authors Note
Chelsea Avenue is a real street in Long Branch, NJ and not too far from where I grew up. Murphy's Law Club was an actual place as well, but it closed down sometime in the early 1990s. On July 8th 1987, the famous Haunted House on the pier in Long Branch did, indeed, burn down. As for the rest…
Chapter 1
July 8th 1987
PART ONE
* * *
He ordered a beer but didn’t bother with it, entranced with the crowd. His long, black trench coat swished as he moved slowly, methodically. His black-gloved hands brushed ever so slightly against a shoulder here, the small of a back there. He wanted to touch everyone in the club tonight. Murphy’s Law was filling up slowly.
Water slipped in slow rivulets from his clothing, lost underfoot in the darkness. If anyone noticed his damp clothing or his oceanic smell, they didn’t bother to let him know. Since he was in the mood to kill tonight, for fun as well as for his goal, it was just as well.
Tonight is the night I will Ascend.
He estimated less than one hundred people shuffling around with their drinks and cigarettes in hand; the women were busy posing, the black-attired men pretending to ignore them. Everyone’s hair was long and piled to the rafters, both men and women wearing touches of makeup. He cared nothing about the music scene or any of these posers—wasn’t that a word they used?
A couple locked in a frenzied, alcohol-induced kiss brushed past him, and he stroked their arms. Stephanie Lehman. Nick Martin.
The headline act had a special meaning for him tonight: a group of young Satanists who spread their gospel through song lyrics about Hell, death, and suffering. As if they knew. As if anything they said was real.
I will show you Hell. Death. Suffering.
He didn’t want to wait another two or three hours for the night to really kick in. He was growing impatient already. Closing his eyes, he tried to calm down and focus. It would be of no use if he lost it now, especially after all the planning. What were another few hours when time would have no meaning after this?
Without thought, he reached out and stroked a young girl’s hair as she swept past him to the bar. Jennifer Jacoby.
When the band with the unwieldy name of Spawned Against the Acrid Nemesis took the stage tonight, the real Hell would begin. The band itself didn’t matter, but they were the focus of the power tonight. With their music as his conduit, he would be able to wield the noise and ascend to power.
A petite blonde, garbed in an Anthrax concert shirt and hair reeking of Aquanet, smiled at him when he touched her shoulder. Melissa Swaim. If this were any other night, he would most likely buy her a few drinks, watch the bands play, and then seduce her on the beach and enter her before ripping her entrails from her still-warm corpse.
Any other night.
He could hear the driving beat from the strip club next door and hoped that he had enough time to touch everyone there as well. The more he marked, the more he was assured of his Ascension.
Seventy-two, seventy-three… He counted each person as he touched them, walking slowly around the 21 and over bar area and into the main room, where a local heavy metal band was setting up their equipment. People passed him, and he instinctively knew which ones he still needed to feel. No one seemed to notice him. He was just another hair-bag metal dude in a stupid black coat with thick black boots stomping on the dirty floor. He didn’t feel a part of these sheep, but he knew he blended in with them, and he needed that for tonight.
“Great night for a show, huh?” Anthrax Girl asked him. “The band that just went off is my brother’s band; he’s the bass player. Did you like them?” She touched his coat and frowned. “Is it raining outside?”
This one was persistent. He looked into her eyes as he brushed his long, black hair back behind an ear and smiled. She shuddered but didn’t look away.
“Do you wanna die?” he whispered in her ear, his stubbly face against her soft cheek.
Her smile fell but only for a second. “That’s a Slayer lyric, right? They rule.”
After tonight, I rule.
He had two to three hours before he would need to do anything important, and there was something about this stupid little girl that made him want to kill now.
Without another word, he took her hand and led her through the crowd, rubbing against as many bodies as he could while he was moving. Eighty, eighty-one…
The band members were climbing off the stage and cut right in front of him. He bumped into the two lead guys: long-haired freaks that looked like him but had none of the power.
“Watch out, asshole,” one of them murmured. He smiled and made sure every one of them had been touched. He would save them for last tonight.
Craig Reynolds, Brian Philbin, John Regan, Will Anderson.
Hooking her hand in his, he made a zigzag pattern around the club, tapping at people with his free hand and savoring it as each person’s name came unbidden to his mind.
Karen Johns, Debbie Wright, Russ Meyer, Bob Dennison.
Satisfied that everyone in the vicinity had been marked, he moved toward the exit. He tapped the patrons huddled near the entrance; they didn't feel his touch.
“Where are we going?” she yelled over the noise, but he ignored her. As a man of action, he was done talking.
At last, satisfied that everyone in the building was accounted for and primed for his Ascension, he relaxed slightly.
He pushed through the bouncers at the door and dragged her outside. There wasn’t time to take her far, but he didn’t care. He wanted one last time to sweat and rut like a mortal, one more weakling squirming under his thrusts before he gutted her and spilled her life into the ocean.
She looked up at the sky. “It didn’t rain. There’s not a
cloud in the sky. All I see is stars.”
“Where are you parked?” he asked impatiently.
“The next block over. Are we leaving?” She hesitated.
“For a few minutes.” He pulled her close and squeezed her ass. “I’m going to take you in the backseat of your car and then go back into the club.”
“What?”
He slapped her across the mouth. “Lead me to your car. We’re running out of time.”
Her mouth gaped open in shock, but there was a hint of a smile.
She is enjoying this, stupid bitch.
Without another word, she led him a block away to her small Hyundai. As soon as the door was unlocked, he rushed her, pulling her Anthrax T-shirt over her head. “Be careful! It’s the only shirt I have with me.”
“You won’t need it, trust me,” he said and yanked her tight jeans down, ripping her pink panties as he did.
“I like it rough,” she exclaimed as if he didn’t know already.
I wonder if you want it this rough.
As he entered her, she grunted with pleasure but then pushed against his chest. “What’s that smell?”
He laughed and continued to jab into her, accelerating his pace.
“Really, stop!” She began punching him, but he was on top of her, lowering his chest closer to her body.
She gagged. “You stink like fucking dead fish.”
“I smell like the sea, my dear. I smell like your ancestors did before they squirmed their way out of the depths and took over the land.”
He was slamming into her now, and for effect, he slapped her across the mouth, an awkward blow due to their close proximity. He didn’t care. The goal was to explode inside of her before the true fun began.
She puked, her body wracking violently. He let her, holding her face in his hand now so that she couldn’t properly expel it to the side and out of her mouth. “Taste it,” he murmured.
The sweet, cool rush came on suddenly, and he shuddered. He could almost visualize his seed boring through her body. He was drenched and took in his own smell just as she had said: the tang of the ocean on his skin, sluicing from his arms and legs and covering her. He wanted to gut her but felt that simply lying on her and drowning her would suffice.
The real excitement would begin soon enough. He shuddered as the oils and wetness dripped from his pores, soaking her body. Already, her backseat was a puddle, and the floor of the car was filling quickly.
She screamed, but it was too late for her. As her mouth opened as wide as her pleading eyes, he shoved a fist into her mouth and buried it in her throat, his arm tingling as the water rushed from inside of him and coated her insides. She gagged and bucked.
When she was still, he removed his fist and smiled as a small stream of liquid escaped her lips, held apart in death.
Now, my Ascension can begin.
He wished he had time to drag her limp body into the ocean and watch her sink, her form bloating and feeding his kin. But that would take time, and the ritual could not be rushed, not ever. Instead, he would simply toss her into the water with the rest when he was done and perform the Ascension rites in a couple of hours.
He'd waited hundreds of mortal years for this time to finally come, and he wanted to savor it. With each passing day, he'd slowly become stronger. Thirteen mortal years ago, he'd been woken from his eternal slumber—along with his pestilent brothers—and gained power with each anniversary.
Tonight, it was time. In less than three hours, he would usurp and destroy this land and take it for his own. Og, Soh, and Dir could not stop him once it had begun.
The only poor choice tonight was not working up a strong storm from over his ocean before he'd started. A thorough soaking of the earth, a torrential rainstorm, and some flooding would be fitting on a night like this.
But Wiy of the Water knew he had plenty of time for that…all of eternity to break the creatures and turn the earth into a watery grave.
As he rounded the corner, he smelled the acrid smoke and felt the wind blowing the moisture out of the air. His pace increased. He broke into a jog, unable to fathom what was going on. Murphy’s Law was aflame. The roof was already creaking as it prepared to plummet and kill all of the people beneath it, people that had already been marked by him for his Ascension.
A few blocks away, the Long Branch pier was ablaze, the pillars supporting the Haunted House giving way and tossing the structure, unceremoniously, into the waves beneath.
No bother, he thought. He still had time to rush in and kill everyone before they succumbed to the flames or the smoke. Wiy just needed to hurry.
The flame appeared on the street, blocking his way, a pillar of angry oranges, reds, and whites. "You shall not pass," it whispered, crackling as it spoke. "There is a balance."
"I never agreed to it."
"No matter. The deal was brokered for the four of us, and we shall abide by it."
"Move out of my way, brother, and allow me to finish what was started by you."
"I seek to let some live. You seek to enslave."
"I seek what is mine!" Wiy yelled and attempted to simply step around the natural form of his brother, Og of the Flame.
"The humans will rush to the pier fire first. By the time this one is accounted for, all of the eighty-three inside will have perished, and you will be dragged back to your prison. It's taken us thirteen long years to find you."
"Us?" Wiy said and spat on the column, laughing when the spit formed steam. He knew it wouldn't hurt his brother in the least, but it was worth it. Someday soon, he would revel in dragging Og into the ocean and destroying him.
The wind gushed, violent and sudden, around them.
"Ah, brother Soh of the Wind joins your worthy cause." Wiy looked past them with frustration. The roof was collapsing. He needed one person to survive, only one, and he could set a new plan into motion. "Where is brother Dir of the Earth, I wonder?"
"I am here. Brothers, let us begin the binding ritual before Wiy can leave us again."
Wiy of the Water closed his eyes, ignoring the sounds of the screaming people inside the club and his brothers. He began a ritual of his own, one that would help to bind him to this particular area and to the people that escaped. He prayed to the Old Gods that at least one would come out alive.
Manny Santiago was celebrating his birthday the same way he did every year since he could remember: working at Murphy’s Law for his parents. Less than a year from graduation, he had no idea what he wanted to do. Right now, he wasn’t thinking about that. He was thinking about the overflowing toilet bowl in front of him.
“Dude, that sucks,” someone mumbled behind him as he stood there, covering his nose with one gloved hand and holding the mop with the other.
"Thanks for the insight," Manny mumbled.
Ignoring the bathroom door opening and closing behind him, he gritted his teeth and went to work, sopping up the puddles on the floor and jiggling the toilet handle to get the water to stop.
Right now, he’d love to be anywhere else, even at school. Well, maybe not at school. He’d love to be on the beach right now or inside the main area of the club watching a band or checking out some of the beautiful Jersey girls that were wandering around tonight.
The toilet hiccuped a spout of water, and Manny wanted to kick the damn thing. “It’s kicking your ass,” a voice said behind him. "You are losing the battle and the war."
He turned to see his father leaning against the doorway. “Give me the mop.”
“Dad, I got it,” Manny said. He tried to sound confident but knew by the look in his father’s eyes that he had failed. “Go and find something else to do.”
"What else would I rather be doing? You seem to be having so much fun, why not get a piece of it for myself?"
"I was just about to get a handle on this. Trust me."
His father smiled and took the mop from Manny. “I can get this. There’s some girl here that’s been asking for you.”
Manny
tried not to smile. “Who?”
“You know who; that girl from school you and your boys have been talking about. That Amy girl.”
Many wanted to jump up and down like a little kid. “I guess I can go say hi once I’m done here.” He played it cool, but his stomach suddenly rumbled. He thought he was going to be sick as the reality of her inquiring about him hit him like a gut punch.
His dad smacked him lightly on the forehead. “You’re done here. Go and find the pretty girl and let your old man soak up the piss on the floor.” He winked. “You owe me big time if this girl goes out with you.”
Manny didn’t need to be told again. He pulled the gloves off his hands, checked his hair in the bathroom mirror, gave a quick tug and sniff of his shirt to make sure he didn’t smell like shit, and then went out into the club. He’d practically been born here and knew every nook and cranny of the building. His parents had owned the club since he was little, and he supposed that someday, he’d own the place.
Even this early, Murphy's Law was packed with drinkers, band members, cliques, and fans.
He spotted Amy from across the room like in a movie. She had long, brown hair and a smile that stopped him in the school hallway. Never mind the fact that Manny had never talked to her in person. He’d done the simple school chain of information: tell someone with a big mouth and let them pass it on until it reached her. If she wasn’t interested, he could say it was a joke or someone got the wrong info. No harm, no foul. If she liked him…
“She does like you, stupid,” he chided himself. She was here, standing with a group of schoolmates at the side of the stage and glancing around. She’d asked about him at the door or asked someone that worked here. She was interested. Now it was his turn. The ball was in his court. He needed to make the next move… He knew he was stalling.