City Infernal
Authors: Edward Lee
Table of Contents
A RAVE REVIEW FOR
CITY INFERNAL
!
CITY INFERNAL
!
“After fifteen some novels, stories selected for over 13 major anthologies, and both critical and popular success, you might expect Edward Lee to show signs of losing the imaginative edge that eventually dulls every author’s pen. Yet Lee’s latest onslaught,
City Infernal,
is perhaps his most powerful, possessing the frantic pacing and tension of such earlier work as
Ghouls
with an additional emotional earnestness too often lacking in contemporary horror ...
City Infernal,
is perhaps his most powerful, possessing the frantic pacing and tension of such earlier work as
Ghouls
with an additional emotional earnestness too often lacking in contemporary horror ...
Lee has penned some of the wettest, bravest terror this side of the asylum. In
City Infernal,
an epic-proportioned urban tragedy of guilt, redemption, and the celestial mechanics of pain, he creates a testimony of human despair and redemption that not only shows the higher effect to which graphic terror can be put, but, in addition, evidence of an ever growing control over craft.... Lee’s depiction of Cassie, an adolescent struggling with problems of identity and responsibility for her sister’s suicide, is no less than remarkable.”
City Infernal,
an epic-proportioned urban tragedy of guilt, redemption, and the celestial mechanics of pain, he creates a testimony of human despair and redemption that not only shows the higher effect to which graphic terror can be put, but, in addition, evidence of an ever growing control over craft.... Lee’s depiction of Cassie, an adolescent struggling with problems of identity and responsibility for her sister’s suicide, is no less than remarkable.”
—William P. Simmons,
Hellnotes
Hellnotes
MORE CRITICAL PRAISE FOR EDWARD LEE!
“Lee is a writer you can bank on for tales so extreme they should come with a warning label.”
—t. Winter-Damon, co-author of
Duet for the Devil
Duet for the Devil
“Edward Lee is the hardest of the hardcore horror writers.”
-Cemetery Dance
“Lee pulls no punches.”
—Fangoria
“Edward Lee is the living legend of literary mayhem. Read him if you dare.”
—Richard Laymon, author of
Island
and
In the Dark
Island
and
In the Dark
“Lee is a demented Henry Miller of horror.”
—Douglas Clegg, author of
The Infinite and Naomi
The Infinite and Naomi
“Anyone for a sightseeing tour of Hell? Follow Cassie ... and have adventures galore.”
—Publisher’s Weekly
ALL ABOARD THE TRAIN TO HELL
The train itself looked like something from the late 1900s—old wooden passenger cars hauled by a steam locomotive. The engine was backed by a high coal tender; however, the chunks of off-yellow fuel were clearly not coal. A man stood on top, shoveling the chunks into a chute. At first he appeared ordinary, dressed in work overalls and a canvas cap as one might expect. He paused a moment to wipe some sweat off his brow, and that’s when he glanced down at Cassie.
The man had no lower jaw—as if it had been wrenched out. Just an upper row of teeth over a tongue that hung from the open throat.
“All aboard!”
“Let’s try to find a decent cabin,” Xeke said and led them down the aisle. He looked into the first cabin, smirked, and said, “Nope.” In the cabin sat a man whose face was warped with large potato-like tumors. Cassie wasn’t sure, but the tumors seemed to have eyes. Xeke frowned into the next cabin, where an ancient woman sat totally naked, leathery skin hanging in folds. Her nostrils looked burned off.
“Oh my God!” Cassie gusted. She was close to hyperventilating. “This place is
horrible!
”
horrible!
”
Xeke sat down. “What did you expect? We’re in Hell, not the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.
For Richard Laymon Rest In Peace
A LEISURE BOOK
®
®
April 2002
Published by
Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc. 276 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10001
If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”
Lyrics © 2001 by Ryan Harding Excerpts used here with permission of the author
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.
ISBN 1-4285-0166-5
The name “Leisure Books” and the stylized “L” with design aretrademarks of Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.
Printed in the United States of America.
Visit us on the web at
www.dorchesterpub.com
.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Though in debt to many, I would like to particularly thank the following for their help, friendship, and encouragement: Rich Chizmar, Doug Clegg, friggin’ Coop, Don D’Auria, Dallas Mayr, Tim McGinnis, Tom Piccirilli, Matt Schwartz, and Bob Strauss.
Foremost, I need to thank the late Dick Laymon—simply one of the finest and most generous guys I’ve ever known. I miss you terribly.
Prologue
It is an incontestable cycle of human history, 5000 years old:
Cities rise, then they fall.
What of this city, though?
The man walks with difficulty down the street. The street sign reads: ISCARIOT AVENUE.
He is carrying a severed head on a stick, and the severed head talks. “Can you spare any change?” the head asks passersby. The man himself can’t talk; his body has half gone to rot. One eye is an empty hole; tiny fanged mites rove in his hair. His skin is pustulating from the latest urban infection, and his tongue has long-since been eaten out of his mouth by vermin.
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