Blackbirds
Contents ( 64)
- PART ONE
- ONE
- TWO
- INTERLUDE
- THREE
- FOUR
- INTERLUDE
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- INTERLUDE
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- INTERLUDE
- TWELVE
- PART TWO
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- INTERLUDE
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- INTERLUDE
- TWENTY
- INTERLUDE
- TWENTY-ONE
- INTERLUDE
- TWENTY-TWO
- INTERLUDE
- TWENTY-THREE
- PART THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- INTERLUDE
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- INTERLUDE
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- INTERLUDE
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- INTERLUDE
- THIRTY-ONE
- INTERLUDE
- THIRTY-TWO
- INTERLUDE
- THIRTY-THREE
- INTERLUDE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- INTERLUDE
- FORTY-ONE
- About the Author
- Acknowledgments
- CHUCK WENDIG in conversation with Adam Christopher
Praise for BLACKBIRDS
"Chuck Wendig has raised the bar of the urban fantasy genre." – New York Journal of Books "Balls-to-the-wall, take-no-prisoners storytelling at its best." – Bill Cameron, author of County Line "Trailer-park tension, horrified hilarity, and sheer terror mixed with deft characterization and razor plotting. I literally could not put it down." – Lilith Saintcrow, author of Night Shift and Working For The Devil "Blackbirds is the kind of book that doesn't let go even after you've put it down and nobody else could have made it shine like Chuck Wendig." – Stephen Blackmoore, author of City Of The Lost and Dead Things "Mean, moody and mysterious, Blackbirds is a noir joyride peppered with black humour, wry observation, and visceral action." – Adam Christopher, author of Empire State "A gleefully dark, twisted road trip for everyone who thought Fight Club was too warm and fuzzy. If you enjoy this book, you're probably deeply wrong in the head. I loved it." – James Moran, Severance, Doctor Who and Torchwood screenwriter "A deliciously morbid road movie waiting to happen." – Jason Arnopp, scriptwriter of Stormhouse and Doctor Who:The Gemini Contagion
ALSO BY CHUCK WENDIG
Double Dead
Irregular Creatures (short stories)
Shotgun Gravy (novella)
Non-Fiction
250 Things You Should Know About Writing
500 Ways to be a Better Writer
Confessions of a Freelance Penmonkey
Revenge of the Penmonkey
CHUCK WENDIG
Blackbirds
PART ONE
ONE
The Death of Del Amico
Car lights strobe through busted motel blinds.
When the lights come in, Miriam regards herself in the dirty mirror.
I look like something blown in off a dusty highway, she thinks. Dirty, torn jeans. Tight white tee. Bleach blonde hair, the roots coming up, those dark, earthen roots.
She puts her hands on her hips and cocks them this way, then that. With the back of her hand, she wipes away a smear of lipstick from where Del kissed her.
"The lights need to be on," she says to nobody, foretelling the future.
She clicks the lamp by the bed. Piss-yellow light illumines the ratty room.
A roach sits paralyzed in the middle of the floor.
"Shoo," she says. "Fuck off. You're free to go."
The roach does as it's told. It boogies under the pull-down bed, relieved.
Back to the mirror, then.
"They always said you were an old soul," she mutters. Tonight she's really feeling it.
In the bathroom, the shower hisses. It's almost time now. She sits down on the side of the bed and rubs her eyes, yawns.
She hears the squeaking of the shower knobs. The pipes in the walls groan and stutter like a train is passing. Miriam balls up her monkey toes and flexes them tight. The toe-knuckles pop.
In the bathroom, Del is humming. Some Podunk fuckwit country tune. She hates country. That music is the dull, throbbing pulse-beat of the Heartland. Wait. This is North Carolina, right? Is North Carolina the Heartland? Whatever. The Heartland. The Confederacy. The Wide Open Nowhere. Did it matter?