Siren Promised

  Siren Promised

  by

  Jeremy Robert Johnson & Alan M. Clark

  Published by IFD Publishing at Smashwords

  Discover other titles from IFD at Smashwords.com.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  All persons in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance that may seem to exist to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental. This is a work of fiction.

  “Siren Promised” copyright 2004-2011 Jeremy Robert Johnson & Alan M. Clark. All illustrations in this book copyright 2004-2011 Alan M. Clark. Introduction “Siren Promised—From Hell” 2004 Simon Clark.

  IFD Publishing, P.O. Box 40776, Eugene, Oregon 97404 U.S.A. (541)461-3272 www.ifdpublishing.com

  Book design by Alan M. Clark and Eric Witchey

  ~~~

  For those who have fought to become clean and sober. Keep fighting.

  ~~~

  From Hell: An Introduction by Simon Clark

  A dozen or so years after the publication of Frankenstein in 1818, Mary Shelley wrote a new introduction to the 1831 edition. By then Frankenstein had already been a huge bestseller, a successful play, and laid the foundation of the monster mythos that continues to prosper today. In that later introduction Mary Shelley wrote this in the new edition of her famous novel: “And now, once again, I bid my hideous progeny go forth and prosper. I have an affection for it, for it was the offspring of happy days, when death and grief were but words, which found no true echo in my heart.”

  The key words that are relevant not only to Mary Shelley’s personal view of her literary creation, but also the book you now hold in your hands, are “when death and grief were but words, which found no true echo in my heart.” Mary wrote her book as a young woman. At the time her invented episodes of death, destruction and a man constructed of corpse parts, then brought to life, to ultimately murder its own creator were, she acknowledged, frivolous play things originally intended to amuse herself and her companion during inclement weather at the famous Villa Diodati. By the time she penned the second introduction for a revised Frankenstein, her husband was dead and her spirit had been corroded by this and other tragedies great and small. So, in short, the fictional incidents of death and grief that befall Frankenstein and his nameless monster did come to find a true echo in her heart in the face of enduring life as a grieving widow and supporting a father who apparently sucked the financial lifeblood out of her.

  I, like most of my fellow horror writers, am in the same position as the young Mary Shelley. We write stories about monsters whether they be vampires, phantoms, demons, zombies, serial killers—the whole uncanny menagerie—and just like the young girl exercising her quill in the Swiss villa, we’ve never actually encountered our monsters, never mind battled with them. They haven’t hurt our families or us. In truth, for most horror writers, our demons are good to us. Our monsters—our imagined monsters—pay household bills, they generate royalty checks, cash advances, rights, sales. Our monsters treat us to new DVD players and vacations. Our demons make us happy. And the bottom line is, just like many horror writers, our stories of blood and mayhem are “the offspring of happy days, when death and grief were but words, which found no true echo in my heart”—that should read our hearts, of course. That’s not to say horror writers don’t work hard at their craft; nor do we fail to believe in our story’s “artistic” truth. In reality, the demons we manufacture in our minds tend not to torment our families, or us, or generate grief and discord among those who care about us.

  Therefore it’s an honor for me to write this introduction of Siren Promised. It’s humbling, too, because it has been created by two people who have encountered demons; they have suffered what I cannot begin to imagine; they have fought those demons and ultimately, God willing, conquered them. I am, of course, talking about Demon Alcohol and Demon Drug. At the very beginning of the book, both men make the stark acknowledgment: Alan is an alcoholic. Jeremy is a drug addict. I daresay both would agree that many of the words contained in Siren Promised do find a ‘true echo’ in their hearts.

  Both men wrote the narrative. One of the pair, Alan M. Clark, provided the artwork that succeeds brilliantly in being simultaneously both beautiful and horrifying. Siren Promised possesses the veracity of men who have witnessed terrors that most of us can only imagine. I guess, too, that as well as sharing many of those terrors and degradations with us in fiction, it also forms part of a personal weaponry that keeps their own demons at bay and serves as a warning to others.

  We read the newspapers, we watch TV, we’re familiar with phrases such as “substance abuse,” “detox,” “rehab.” So when we’re presented with the story here of twenty-nine-year-old Angie Smith emerging from ‘her time in detox hell,’ initially it could be an everyday event that occurs repeatedly in just about every neighborhood the world over. To read an account compressed in a few stark lines in a newspaper is to render it almost banal: A story as commonplace as weeds in an overgrown garden. In reality every single story of a battle against drink or drug addiction is an epic struggle of men and women against personal demons. It’s every bit as vast and as harrowing as the archetypal hero’s battle against legendary monsters found in ancient myth.

  Siren Promised is exceptional and compelling. Not solely because both Jeremy Robert Johnson and Alan M. Clark have battled the demons of addiction. It’s not only the fact that they experienced the pain and witnessed their loved ones’ suffering too; or that they may have encountered crushing setbacks and heartbreaking defeats before winning through. What makes Siren Promised such a towering achievement is the rare skill that both men possess to transform their personal experiences into a work of such visionary power. It’s harrowing, it’s horrific, it’s moving, and it’s mesmerizing. As a body of words alone, it is an astonishing achievement. With the addition of Alan’s unique artwork it is transfigured. It is elevated to a volume that I firmly believe will stand the test of time.

  I’ve been fortunate enough to see Alan’s original artwork on display. Those big, bold canvases capture both dream and nightmare. I know I’ve said it before, but it’s worth repeating: those paintings are simultaneously beautiful and disturbing. In equal measures I’ve been fascinated yet repelled. However, the conviction that overrode an up-welling of genuine emotion as I stared, wide-eyed, at the artwork was that these were works of a truly original talent. One with an uncanny gift to transport us to worlds that we all have visited in our sleep.

  So here it is, Siren Promised, a consummate body of words and pictures that has the power to carry us to places that I sincerely hope we’ll never visit in real life. Places which, I pray will find no true echo in our hearts. But Siren Promised is a “virtual” journey that is fulfilling, some might add empowering.

  Experience it.

  Learn from it.

  Simon Clark Doncaster, England May 2004

  Chapter 1: Cypher

  Angie Smith had done her time in detox hell. Her self-imposed exile was done. Her new life was waiting, beyond the
border of the bed that had held her like a life raft through terrible, dope-sick storms.

  She listened to the sound of her heart beating, a slow and muffled pulse resonating in her ear drums. Her blood’s motion and the steady hum of an oscillating fan were the only sounds traveling through the bare, beige and tan room in which she’d entrenched herself. She took a deep waking breath and sucked up the smell of stale, sweat-soaked sheets, and the thin aroma of coffee drifting in beneath the guest room door. She figured her friend Stacy was up and enjoying breakfast.

  Maybe I can leave this miserable little room today. Have breakfast, even. Something besides water and chicken noodle soup.

  Her stomach turned at the thought, growling audibly while her belly clenched.

  She’d grown used to the sounds of her body in the last three weeks. Detox had a way of making her feel very connected to her flesh, in all the worst ways. Cold-turkey tremors, the frenzied edges of white-knuckle seizures, abdominal cramps, and fevers so bad she felt like her head had been placed in a furnace. Her brain had betrayed her too, subjecting her to long periods of delirium followed by epic stretches of sharp lucidity with nothing to do but hurt. She’d fought back against the pain by repeating her new mantra, her reasons for leaving her old life behind.

  Get clean. Get away from Cypher. Get back to Kaya and be her mother.

  She knew she could do these things. Every day brought her a step closer. Each night that she saw the sunlight fading through the thin, white sheet that was tacked up over the window, she knew she could do it. She could succeed, and make it back to Monahan, and be a mother to Kaya before they’d both grown too old; before her thirteen-year-old daughter hated her absolutely.

  I’m only twenty-nine. It’s not too late. Get clean. Get away from Cypher. Get back to Kaya.

  Angie rose slowly from her sagging twin bed, delicately, to avoid passing out.

  She’d put her body through so much. She felt like she’d been a bunny in a pharmaceutical testing lab, the technicians’ voices in her ears.

  “What happens if we drip LSD in its eyes?”

  “What will a steady dose of dilaudid do to this creature’s heart rate?”

  Cypher had been behind much of her daily dosing, a lab technician posing as a boyfriend, watching her twitch, studying the results, looking for a way to exert maximum control.

  Fuck him. Fuck me for letting him do that to me. I’m done with him, with that whole part of my life. I’d have been dead in a couple of years if I stayed with him.

  She tried to ignore the sick undercurrent to her thought.

  If he finds me, I might be dead anyway.

  Angie shook off goose bumps, and bent down to pick up an extra large t-shirt from the soft, shag carpet beneath her feet. She ran her hands through her tangled, shoulder-length black hair and sighed.

  Back to the real world, I guess.

  Her stomach rumbled again, begging her to eat.

  Okay, okay. I’ll have some breakfast, and then I can talk to Stacy about maybe borrowing some cash, and getting home.

  She pictured home. She pictured Kaya there, waiting for her mother’s arrival, sitting on the front step. Her daughter would smile when she saw her mom, her new mom, all cleaned up and sparkling and ready to be a mother. At last. They’d hug forever, and Angie would bend down and smell Kaya’s hair and kiss the thin line where it parted down the middle, and Kaya would hug her tighter, and everything could start again.

  Angie even planned on thanking her mother, Colleen, for looking after Kaya all these years. The least she could do for the woman, no matter how much she personally despised her, was thank her for being there.

  After that, Angie’d have her whole life ahead of her. Maybe ballet lessons with Kaya, mother and daughter spinning gracefully together. They could gently tend to each other’s sore feet after a long day of floating on air.

  They could cook dinner together, and after eating they could splash each other with dishwater while standing at the sink, side by side.

  They could fall asleep together on the nights when Kaya needed her to be close.

  Angie rose from the bed, stretched out her arms, and managed a smile. Morning sun fell across her pale skin and warmed her to the coming day.

  ~~~

  “You want me to go to an outdoor rave? Tonight, seriously?”

  “Yeah, Angie. You deserve a little bit of fun. You’ve been milling around the house acting useless for a couple of days now, even though you say you’re feeling much better. You should get out, avoid cabin fever, re-socialize yourself before you head home. So yeah, I’m serious.”

  “Stacy, I don’t even know if I want to leave the house right now.” She took a sip of hot, black coffee and tried not to look pathetic. She wanted to appear strong for Stacy, to show that she hadn’t taken Angie in and helped her through her detox for nothing.

  “Angie, you’ve got to get out at some point…”

  “I know. But, a rave? Isn’t your twelve step shit against that?”

  “Kind of. But I don’t take that stuff as gospel. I’m into moderation. I mean, if we don’t celebrate now and then, what are we fighting for anyway? You’ve always liked to dance. Are you going to tell me that you only listened to music and danced in the past because you were high?”

  Angie looked at Stacy across the small, round kitchen table. There didn’t seem to be any kind of malice in her face, any threat. Stacy leaned in closer to Angie, cinnamon on her breath.

  “Listen, Angie, you’re my girl, you know? And I’m not sure, once you leave this place, that I’ll ever see you again. It’s probably smart if you never come back here. So just go out there with me tonight. They’ve got like twelve DJ’s and the party is at this tree farm out by the old Chandler swamps. It’s gonna be sick. We’ll stay sober, we’ll dance, we’ll walk around in the trees and talk, like we used to do before you met that piece of shit. It’ll just be us, and some dope beats, and maybe we smoke a bowl or two and just chill. Please, Angie?”

  “Okay, but if I don’t dig it, we bail, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Okay. Okay… fuck it. I’ll go. I deserve to have some fun.”

  Stay clean. Get away from Cypher. Get home to Kaya.

  Right after this.

  ~~~

  The night air was perfect at first; seventy-two degrees at the beginning of an Indian summer. It felt like there was no temperature at all—just a beautiful evening full of music. Angie was vibrating with excitement as she walked the dirt trail to the bass-slammed epicenter of the party.

  The party itself was in full swing by the time they arrived, at about 2 a.m. Angie looked at the mass of twisting, colorful people dancing like little pagans before the speaker-gods, and realized she’d made the right choice. She loved to dance and was nearly shaking, eager to run right into the maelstrom and feel her body move with the music. She wondered how strong she would feel now, how long she could dance without any coke or pills.

  I don’t care how I feel. I’ll dance until my body quits. Stacy will have to cart me home crippled.

  Angie and Stacy quickly found a prime spot down by the front right speaker banks, just to the side of the DJ table. They danced side by side, facing the relentless onslaught of sound coming from the speakers. The bass was vibrating so strongly that Angie felt it moving the hairs on her arms.

  She looked over at Stacy, who was smiling a wide, white-toothed grin, and hopefully feeling the same way. Angie looked to the sky and kept smiling, feeling her legs trace graceful arcs beneath her.

  Her pulse raced naturally, avoiding the jackrabbit palpitations that used to make her vomit when she was faded on E. She pushed herself to keep moving, all smiles and sweat and motion.

  Anybody watching me right now probably figures I’m rolled to the high heavens.

  Angie didn’t care. She wasn’t dancing for other people. She was dancing for herself, for the life she was building from the ground up.

  For my future.

>   Her body felt incredibly light as she danced. She moved among the other dancers with her eyes closed, feeling holy, untouchable. She imagined herself borne on wings, swirling night under her skin, lightning crashing around her as the music kept her afloat.

  After about an hour of dancing, she had stopped sweating. She was burning up. Her mouth was desert-dry, and she realized she needed to get a glass of water or juice or anything so she could keep going, keep dancing.

  She turned away from the speaker, toward the crowd behind her.

  Stacy was nowhere to be seen.

  And Cypher was right behind her, smiling, watching her with his arms crossed in front of his chest, nodding his head with the beat.

  She tried to look into his eyes, unsure of how to react, wondering if she should just follow her gut reaction and run.

  Why does he have to be here tonight? Jesus. Why tonight? This is my party. He’s probably just dealing. He can’t even dance.

  Cypher stood a few feet away, slender arms in front of him, wearing khaki cargo pants and a dark red Polo shirt. His brown eyes were hidden in his sockets, shaded black and empty by the moonlight. He ran his hands over his neatly shaved head and looked her up and down.

  “Hey, Angie. Where you been all my life?”

  Angie looked around, comforted by the dancing masses that thronged her and Cypher. Witnesses. She couldn’t see Stacy anywhere.

  Probably off making out with some guy with a cleft chin. She loves cleft chins. Why isn’t she here right now, watching my back? She’s the one with the pepper spray.

  “Hey, Angie, what’s up with the silent treatment?”

  He looked strangely relaxed, and Angie was hoping he’d popped some peaceful pills tonight, something that would make him easier to deal with.

  “Nothing’s going on, Cyph. Just chilling out, dancing. You?”

  “Me? I’m just watching you, thinking about how much better you’d look wearing nothing, dancing like you used to do for me.”