Stranger Things Have Happened: An Adrien English Write Your Own Damn Story (The Adrien English Mysteries)

WHO KILLED ROBERT HERSEY?

Book store assistant and all around bad boy Robert Hersey has been murdered – and you are the #1 suspect! To clear your name and get your life back, you must figure out who killed your best friend and first love.

__________

What happens next in the story all depends on the choices YOU make. How will the story end? It's all up to YOU. And the best part is you can keep reading and choosing until you've written your perfect ending.

STRANGER THINGS HAVE HAPPENED
An Adrien English Write Your Own Damn Story

Digital edition June 2014

Copyright (c) 2014 by Josh Lanyon

Cover design by K.B. Smith

Original cover art and interior art by Catherine Dair

Edited by Keren Reed

All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,

electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from JustJoshin Publishing, Inc.

ISBN: 978-1-937909-29-1

Published in the United States of America

JustJoshin Publishing, Inc.

3053 Rancho Vista Blvd.

Suite 116

Palmdale, CA 93551

www.joshlanyon.com

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

DEDICATION

For everyone who loves and misses Adrien and Jake. Not the novel you were hoping for, I know, but I hope you will have as many laughs — and perhaps a few tears — reading these crazy adventures as I did writing them.

STRANGER THINGS
HAVE HAPPENED

An Adrien English Write Your Own Damn Story

__________

JOSH LANYON

WARNING!!!

__________

This is a work of fiction. Even more so than usual.

If you have never encountered gamebooks or Choose Your Own Adventure stories, then there are some things you should know. First of all, though it is based on the original novel
Fatal Shadows,
you can’t read this story through from beginning to end. It won’t make sense. It might not make sense anyway. As you read, you will be asked to make choices as to what the characters should do next.

Some of the choices will be trivial, insignificant. Some will be momentous. You won’t know ahead of time which is which. Some choices will lead you in circles. Some will lead to
dead ends
. Some will lead to quiet residential cul-de-sacs with white picket fences and teenagers who play the music too loud. Some will lead to danger and death. Or worse.

If you prefer to stick to Adrien English’s original choices, you are free to follow the breadcrumbs. We promise not to make chicken noises or flap our arms at you.

Choose wisely! Your success in unraveling the mystery of who killed Robert Hersey will depend completely on YOU!

C
ops before breakfast. Before coffee even.
As if Mondays aren’t bad enough.

After last night it’s not a total surprise.

Oh, but first things first. You are a thirty-two-year-old Los Angeles bookstore owner. You’re reasonably successful despite the fact that these are hard times for indie bookstores, and you recently sold your first novel
Murder Will Out
to a small press. That’s about it for your professional life. Your personal life…well, you don’t have a personal life, let’s face it.

Your college sweetheart walked out years ago because you’ve got a bum ticker and he didn’t want to take a chance on getting saddled with, well, you. Not that he didn’t love you and everything.

Did I mention you are gay?

Anyway.

Cops. Standing outside Cloak and Dagger Books at this very second — crowding the welcome mat and leaning on the buzzer.

For God’s sake. It’s not even seven in the morning. Whatever this is, it’s not good news.

You stumble downstairs, shove back the ornate security gate, unlock the glass front doors, and let them in: two plainclothes detectives.

They identify themselves with a show of badges. Detective Chan is older, paunchy, a little rumpled, smelling of Old Spice and cigarettes as he brushes by you. The other one, Detective Riordan, is big and blond, with a neo-Nazi haircut and tawny eyes. Your gut clenches as you meet those cold, light eyes. Call it instinct. Call it premonition.

“I’m afraid we have some bad news for you, Mr. English,” Detective Chan says.

You already know what he’s going to say. His face — that professionally neutral expression — is a giveaway. You don’t risk another look at Riordan. He makes you nervous though you’re not normally the nervous type. You head for your office in the back of the bookstore, and you keep walking as Chan finishes, “…concerning an employee of yours. A Mr. Robert Hersey.”

The cops tell you that Robert, who in addition to being your employee is your oldest — and once closest — friend, has been stabbed to death in the alley behind his West Hollywood apartment.

That’s the bad news. There is no good news. They start asking you questions about your relationship with Robert. You stick to the bare facts as much as possible and volunteer no information. You’ve been selling mystery novels long enough to know that much.

“Were you lovers?” Chan glances at Riordan. Riordan must be the guy in charge.

“No.”

“But you
are
homosexual?” Riordan never blinks, his gaze never veers.

“I’m gay. What of it?”

“And Hersey was homosexual?” In a minute they’re going to bring up the argument at the Blue Parrot. You consider refusing to answer any more questions without your lawyer present. But that’s liable to look guilty, right? That’s what the cops on TV always say.

You keep fencing and they keep probing, trying to find the weak spot in your defense, and then finally — FINALLY — they leave, promising to keep in touch. That’s copspeak for
you’re not fooling anyone, English
. Before he walks out the door, that asshole Riordan picks up an empty Tab can and throws it in the wrong trash bin. Well, when you own the entire fucking planet, you don’t need to worry about recycling.

You hear the phone in your office ringing as you relock the glass front doors and drag the ornate security gate across the entrance. If you had a few planks of solid oak and a handful of nails, you’d board the place up.

But no sooner do you get that heavy old gate into place than a dark-haired woman in a yellow raincoat starts pounding on the glass doors.

“We’re not open yet,” you mouth to her.

“Mr. English! It’s me. Mariah Packard.”

Who the…?

Mariah reminds you that you agreed to include Cloak and Dagger bookstore as a stop on one of those morbid murder tours. Way back in the thirties, no, the forties — or was it the fifties? — anyway, way back before you were even a gleam in your old man’s eye, this building was a hotel called The Huntsman’s Lodge. A hotel where, according to urban legend, a murder took place.

But wait a minute. When did you agree to be part of a creepy tourist attraction? You never agreed to that! No way. Not your style.

It doesn’t matter. This is the way the story is heading, so roll with it.

Once more you drag the security gate back and open the glass doors. A group of middle-aged Midwesterner types file in, looking google-eyed and awestruck. Have these people never seen books before? Do they spend all their free time eating fructose-based foods and watching dance competition shows on TV?

Mariah asks where the murder took place. She means the OTHER murder, clearly, since poor Rob was killed in West Hollywood. You tell the tour guide that her guess is as good as yours, and you retreat to your office.

__________

If you decide to immediately call your lawyer, click here

If you change your mind and decide a shower and some coffee would be a good idea, click here

C
laude is so kind and so persistent — and you
so
desperately don’t want to move in with your mother — that eventually you let yourself be persuaded to move in with him when you’re finally released from rehab.

Claude lives in a small pink bungalow in Los Feliz, which he spares no effort preparing for you. During the day and a lot of the evening, Claude is at Café Noir. His mother comes in to take care of you. She’s a big, gruff woman with a strong back and a stronger stomach. Why it’s easier to let Claude’s mother care for you, than your own, is one of life’s mysteries. It’s not like Lisa would be the one actually feeding and changing you. Anyway, despite Lisa’s dire predictions, you survive. In fact, you and Mrs. La Pierra quickly grow fond of each other.

Claude takes care of you when he’s home in the evenings and at night. Maybe it helps that you’ve always been completely honest with each other, and that you’ve both got a sense of humor. At first you sleep in a hospital bed in the tiny guest bedroom. There’s barely enough room for the bed, your wheelchair, and Mrs. La Pierra’s old sewing machine. You watch the moon slipping through the fingers of the orange tree in the backyard. You listen to the stray cats fighting and mating.

The nights are very long. You have too much time to think of what could have been…

But Claude was right, love does eventually come — as does acceptance.

One day, as you sit in the garden, feeling the sun on your face and listening to the birds singing, you realize that you’re glad you’re alive. You’re even happy.

Claude’s also right about you being good at business, even if your first crazed impulse was to open a bookstore. Together, aided by your mother’s generous financial backing, the two of you turn Café Noir into one of the hottest restaurants in Los Angeles.

At your urging, Mrs. La Pierra takes a couple of night courses and eventually she becomes your personal assistant. You resume your publishing career and your sixth book actually goes to #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. British actor Paul Kane eventually options it for a movie.

The End

H
ands shaking, you dial the family lawyer, elderly Mr. Gracen of Hitchcock & Gracen. Except it’s just past nine in the morning, right? So you get the firm’s answering machine. This is not exactly something you can explain over the phone — and you don’t want to try lest Mr. Gracen stop taking your phone calls.

You hang up and the phone rings again.

“Adrien, mon chou,” flutes the high, clear voice of your friend, Claude La Pierra.

Claude owns Café Noir on Hillhurst Ave. He’s big and black and beautiful. You’ve known him for a couple of years — you met when you were still going to those organized gay singles outings, back before you figured out that it was easier being lonely on your own than in a group. Claude loves all things French and has even taught himself the language. Well,
un peu
.

“I just heard,” he continues. “It’s too ghastly. I still can’t believe it. Tell me I’m dreaming.”

If only that were the case. “The police just left.”

“The police?
Mon Dieu!
What did they say? Do they know who did it?”

“I don’t think so.” You’re not sure now whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

“What did they tell you? What did you tell them? Did you tell them about me?”

Claude invites you to lunch. Which sounds more festive than it is. Claude wants the scoop on the murder investigation and he wants to compare notes. Claude’s an amazing cook, but this sounds like a recipe for indigestion.

__________

If you agree to go to Café Noir for lunch, click here

If you decide to stay in the shop and work through lunch, click here

If you decide to go back to bed and start this day over, click here