Release date: September 28, 2018
Subgenre: Horror
About Things You Need:
“Kevin Lucia is this generation's answer to Charles L. Grant.” – Brian Keene
The things we want are so very rarely the things we need.
Clifton Heights, a modest Adirondack town, offers many unique attractions. Arcane Delights sells both paperbacks and hard-to-find limited editions. The Skylark Diner serves the best home-cooked meals around, with friendly service and a smile. Every August, Mr. Jingo’s County Fair visits, to the delight of children and adults. In essence, Clifton Heights is the quintessential small American town. Everyone knows everyone else, and everyone is treated like family. It is quiet, simple, and peaceful.
But shadows linger here. Flitting in dark corners, from the corner of the eye. If you walk down Main Street after dark, the slight scrape of shoes on asphalt whispers you're not alone, but when you look over your shoulder, no one is there. The moon shines high and bright in the night sky, but instead of throwing light, it only seems to make the shadows lengthen.
Children disappear. Teens run away. Hunters get lost in the woods with frightening regularity. Husbands go mad, and wives vanish in the dead of night. And still, when the sun rises in the morning, you are greeted by townspeople with warm waves and friendly smiles, and the shivers pass as everything seems fresh and new...
Until night falls once more.
Handy's Pawn and Thrift sits several blocks down from Arcane Delights. Like any thrift store, its wares range from the mundane to the bizarre. By daylight, it seems just another slice of small town Americana. But in its window hangs a sign which reads: We Have Things You Need. And when a lonely traveling salesman comes looking for something he desperately wants, after normal visiting hours, after night has fallen, he will face a harsh truth among the shelves of Handy’s Pawn and Thrift: the things we want are rarely the things we need.
Proudly represented by Crystal Lake Publishing—Tales from the Darkest Depths.
Excerpt:
It was my first visit to Clifton
Heights Junior/Senior High School. Right from the start, I thought Clifton
Heights was a strange town. Nothing obviously wrong with it. Not on the
surface, anyway. Place was the same as any of the hundreds of towns I’d visited
over the last twenty years. Homey little department and hardware stores,
restaurants, and knick-knack shops. A town hall, three churches, the requisite
small town diner and two high schools. A library, a lumber mill, and a little
creek running past the town, with a bridge over it called Black Creek Bridge.
There was a modest
lake—Clifton Lake—to the east, and folks referred to the hills as “the Heights.”
The clean streets were patrolled often by Sheriff Baker and his deputies. He
seemed a decent guy. Certainly not the stereotypical small-town crook, who ran
his little kingdom with an iron fist. Trust me; I ran into plenty of that sort
back in the day.
The students of
Clifton Heights High were a bunch of hard-working go-getters, the kind which
usually brought in droves of subscriptions. Right from the start I knew they
would deliver.
The teachers and
administrators were friendly and accommodating. The kick-off went well, the
student body enthused, and everything was running five-by-five. Normally, I
would’ve headed out to a bar (in the next town over, of course, always in the
next town over), and settled for Ms. 40-Maybe-50. If she looked okay, of
course, and if I’d had enough Jose Cuervo.
For some reason when
I returned to my cabin at The Motor Lodge, I started to feel restless. I’m not
sure why. Like I said, there was something off
in Clifton Heights. It didn’t make sense at the time. It was quaint, homey,
rustic but not a tourist trap. The people were friendly. The kids at the high
school had been outgoing. The English teacher there—a Gavin Patchett—had taken
me out to dinner at The Skylark. The meal had been everything you’d expect from
a small town diner; heaping portions of great food. When I’d left The Skylark,
I was full-bellied and content, maybe interested in a little company later.
On my way back to The
Motor Lodge, I started feeling twitchy. Uneasy. As if I was being watched or something. Sounds crazy, I
suppose. Anyway, even after showering and prepping for my night out, I still
couldn’t settle down. My good mood had vanished. I no longer wanted to chat up
an aging bar whore with a loose grin and glazed-over eyes. At the same time, I
was far too restless for sleep.
So I found myself
driving aimlessly around town.
Which was strange.
I’d never before had
any desire to explore the town I was visiting. I usually checked into my motel
the night before, maybe hit a bar one or two towns over, called it an early
night so I could wake up fresh the next morning. The next day I’d wake up
early, get myself organized, head to the school, and do my thing. After, I’d
return to the motel, eat somewhere then head out to another bar a few towns
over and maybe score some female company. The next morning, I’d be on my way to
another gig.
I’d never bothered to
see more of the towns I visited, so I didn’t understand why I was doing so that
night. Maybe I was curious. You never know if something interesting might be
lurking in a humble little town, right?
As I turned onto
Asher Street, I pulled my rental up to the store at the end. It appeared to be
the only one open. Handy’s Pawn and Thrift. That was interesting: a thrift
store in a small town open at 8:30 at night, when everything else appeared
closed.
At the time, I didn’t
know why I’d stopped there. The joint caught my eye for some reason. Maybe
there was something valuable inside, hiding in all the junk. Treasure among
trash, y’know?
But something else
was at work. I felt pulled there. By what, I had no idea at the time. Now I
know, of course.
It was Fate.
I was meant to stop
at Handy’s.
And nothing would
ever be the same after.
Amazon
About Kevin Lucia:
Kevin Lucia is the Reviews Editor for
Cemetery Dance Magazine. His column Revelations is featured on Cemetery Dance
Online. His short fiction has appeared in several anthologies, most recently
with Neil Gaiman, Clive Barker, and Robert McCammon.
He’s currently finishing his Creative
Writing Masters Degree at Binghamton University. He teaches high school English
and lives in Castle Creek, New York with his family.
His first short story collection, Things Slip Through was published
November 2013, followed by Devourer of
Souls in June 2014 and Through a
Mirror, Darkly, June 2015. His novella Mystery
Road is forthcoming from Cemetery Dance Publications.
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