The Opening Chapter of The Haunts of Violence

Chapter Zero

When he heard the sound of raindrops tapping against the living room window he knew it wasn’t rain but rather the clicking and scraping of fingernails, torn and bloody, arching from fingers that should have seen the grave long ago. He rolled off the couch where he had been sleeping and stumbled into his tiny kitchen, careful to keep his throbbing eyes trained to the floor. The clicking against the window ceased.

He picked up a tumbler from the cluttered sink and rinsed it out with tap water, then filled it half way. The water tasted flat and lifeless and he spit it into the sink, the steel wool feeling in his mouth unabated. He opened a cupboard and cracked the seal on a fresh bottle of Scotch. The amber liquid splashed into the tumbler and paused at one finger, then settled at two. He held the drink under his nose, inhaling from habit into olfactory senses deadened long ago by alcohol. The Scotch burned his tongue with familiar fire.

The weight of the bottle felt promising in his hand as he carried it toward his perch on the couch. He stopped abruptly when he saw the figure sitting there, first appearing as his ex-wife, then becoming a former colleague and, finally, transforming into an ape of comic proportions before disappearing. The space remained empty. He made his way to the other side of the couch and sat down heavily, drops of Scotch fleeing the glass and spattering unnoticed across the front of his soiled t-shirt.

He was not dead yet, and he wondered why not. He had been alone for a year and his drunken slide toward death remained at bay. He thought he had shut himself off from all that had come before, all that had been lost, the disasters that had driven him to this place, but the memories returned, rehearsing and re-enacting the comic nightmare that was the story of his life. He drained his glass and poured again.

Something shifted in the bedroom. He listened as a body fell from the bed and crumpled to the floor. It crawled—no, lurched—toward the door but he refused to look. He squeezed his eyes shut and gritted his teeth, raggedly whispering stop, stop, stop. The thing reached the doorway and then made no more sounds. He opened his eyes and turned to see nothing.

The drink burned again, his stomach tightening at the fresh introduction of alcohol. He wished again for dreamless sleep, but instead the video began its replay in his head. He closed his eyes, sat back, and let the story roll.

On Faith and Horror

People sometimes ask how a religious guy like me can be interested in writing horror stories (“He seemed so nice and normal, although he kept to himself. We never imagined that he . . .”). So I share my “Author’s Note” that I wrote a year ago for my novel A Body Given (part 2 in a three-part series):


While I’ve been a fan of vampire stories since I was a kid, I didn’t start writing about the undead until my grandchildren attempted to convince me that these soulless monsters were just a race of unfortunate and misunderstood beings. Seeking to correct their misperceptions, I set out to write a short story that became my novel This Side of Death, which continues to remain largely undiscovered and, at least by my grandchildren’s reckoning, largely underappreciated.

Nevertheless, the story still wants to tell itself, as these things often do. I’ve discovered along the way that a vampire story is a great vehicle for exploring the depths of evil that plague the human race. My vampires try to be true to the traditional legends, so they are unkind and unmerciful along with being undead. They also expose the darkness that often lies dormant (and too often not dormant) in the hearts of living, breathing, human beings.

The vampire genre also allows for explorations of faith. Since the legends themselves are a reversal of the Christian Eucharist (the blood of the many for the one versus the blood of the One for the many), there are numerous parallels and metaphors that allow a writer to move between the horrors of death and the mysteries of faith.

There is a third book in the making that will probably end this series of vampiric journeys. It too wrestles with horror and faith, moving the story to a new location through the lives of both new and familiar characters.

Stories never emerge in a vacuum, but are an accumulation of experiences, imaginings, influences, and relationships. I am indebted to writers whose wonderfully chilling books have offered me inspiration and pleasure, especially Bram Stoker, Ray Bradbury, Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Anne Rice, and Elizabeth Kostova. Their stories continue to creep at the margins of my imagination.

I am also indebted to those who have been my helpers along the way, those whose input and correction kept me from going too far off the rails in my storytelling. I am grateful for the excellent editing job done by the skilled hands and eyes of my daughter, Laurelin Varieur, who is not shy about correcting my errors but also seems to know how my mind works. I was given hope that my story might hook readers when an early manuscript was read by my friend Lydia Van Hoff, who likes a creepy story as much as I do, and may have actually met a vampire or two in Northern Ireland. And I was expertly guided through the description of the effects of type-1 diabetes by my fine grandson Jacob Karnofel, who made sure I got all the highs and lows right and, like his siblings and cousins, did not hesitate to set his grandfather straight.

And I am thankful that you are about to read this book. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

The Novel, The Bible, and Video Games

Last night I heard a conference speaker talk about the present and future state of the novel. It was really quite interesting. He suggested that, while novel reading has diminished over the years, the need that used to be filled by the reading of fiction is now, in part, satisfied by other activities.

Like playing video games. That’s right—video games.

He pointed out that video games have evolved to be something more than just explosions and shooting. The more recent and sophisticated games develop lengthy (sometimes 1,000 pages or more) “bibles” that track the ongoing story of the game. Players often get together to discuss the various characters, plot points, variations in interpretation, and so on.

This is a fascinating shift. Reading words on a page is a relatively new phenomenon in human history. Prior to the broad availability of text, people’s imaginations were fueled by pictures and stories told over meals and campfires. Now, it seems, many people (research shows that over half the people in the US play video games 13 hours a week or more) desire the fanciful journeys provided by novels, but also want to participate as a character in the story.

The speaker (much to my relief) didn’t pronounce the demise of the novel. Instead, he suggested that the world of creative fiction is expanding and changing. I’m okay with that.

This has caused me to think about how we participate with the expansive narrative we call “The Bible” (heresy alert: I’m not putting Scripture into the category of creative fiction. Relax). Over the years our texts of Scripture have been reduced to propositional statements (limited to verses, as though God intended that in the first place) that stand over and against us, demanding our obedience. But most of the Bible is written as narrative—as a story—rather than as bullet points of command.

I think the video game image is helpful here. What if we engaged with Scripture as participants in the story? What if we allowed ourselves to be drawn in to the narrative, imagining all that is happening, even inserting ourselves into the drama now and again? Martin Luther spoke of the Bible as having hands and feet, pursuing him and grabbing him, alive and dynamic rather than dead and static. Sort of sounds like a video game.

If I had any techno-skill whatsoever (which I don’t), I might invent a video game that tells various stories of the Bible. The player could then enter the story as a character. The player couldn’t alter the outcome, but could engage in conversation, ask questions (think of all the scholars who would line up that job!), and experience the ongoing drama. Maybe you could carry Jesus’ cross, or have a private conversation with Judas. The possibilities are endless.

Lacking that, I’ll probably just stick to reading it from my tattered old print-text Bible. It might also be good to go back to memorizing long sections, and letting the story flow through the mind.

I wonder if Jesus would show up in that? I’ll bet he would.