Deadside in Bug City Read Online Free

just happened?” Todd demanded.
    “I’m not sure,” Melanie Fisher said, “but I think she just gave him the kiss of life.”
     

    Read an excerpt of Randy Chandler's HELLz BELLz , now available on Kindle and Nook!
     
    Randy Chandler's out-of-print and hard-to-find novel HELLz BELLz is back in ebook, on Kindle and Nook.
     
    When an ancient bell begins to toll in an abandoned church, the town of Druid Hills descends into a night of unholy hell. To survive, the less crazed citizens must fight for their lives as they battle their own primitive urges to commit unspeakable acts. Before the night ends, some will discover that there are fates worse than death.
     
     
    Praise for HELLz BELLz
     
    “The tension is built with the skill of a professional, and it is added to by the reader's knowledge that every character is expendable. Hellz Bellz is good fun. There is sex, violence and a hell of a story. This novel reminds me just a little of early-Stephen King mixed with everything Richard Laymon ever wrote. This one, you should read.”
    — SFReader
     
    “Oh intellectual horror, how I’ve missed you!! After one too many mind-numbing books, Hellz Bellz is a treat to be both desired and consumed.”
    — Horror-Web

    CHAPTER ONE
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    The church bell began to toll at sunset.
    Joe Carr lifted his eyes from the steamy sidewalk, turned his head and looked up at the abandoned church on Holy Cross Hill. He shook his head in perplexed wonder and pushed through the smudged-glass door of the Jiffy-Quick Mini-Mart. Crossing the threshold, he felt a fleeting sense of déjà vu.
    The cowbell above the door clanged and the clean-shaven Pakistani behind the counter glanced up from a newspaper and gave Joe a wary nod. Joe figured the guy saw every customer as a potential robber, so he smiled to show he was no threat. But behind the plastic smile he was thinking: Just an ordinary Joe, fuck you very much.
    “Nice and cool in here,” Joe said as he walked up to the counter. He shivered against the air-conditioner’s chill. Too damn cold, but still better than being out in the hot soupy air of the endless late-summer heat wave. “I need a pack of Benson and Hedges menthol.”
    The Pakistani reached to the rack above his head, pulled down the pack of smokes and slapped it on the counter like a Blackjack dealer slapping down a winning ace. “Anything else?”
    Before Joe could say, “No thanks,” the cowbell clanged again and the man went into a paroxysm of anger and sputtered, “You get out of here. I call police.”
    Joe looked back to see who had set off such an intense reaction from the Pakistani.
    A rat-faced man with long greasy hair raised his middle finger and proudly presented it to the storekeeper. His lips peeled back in a gap-toothed grin a hockey goalie would’ve been proud of. His faded grease-stained jeans looked pretty good compared to the ragged Army fatigue shirt he wore unbuttoned to his hairy belly, its sleeves cut off at thick shoulders, his shoulders and forearms etched with violent swirls of skin art.
    Joe stared at the muted colors of the man’s tattooed flesh. Things seemed to be moving around there, as if some of the tattoos were alive and crawling up and down his thick arms.
    “What’re you looking at, asshole?” the illustrated man asked Joe.
    “You are a thief!” the Pakistani shouted. “I don’t want you in my store!”
    “Nothing,” Joe mumbled, looking at the floor.
    “Bullshit,” the man said as he came forward, knocking over a wire rack of over-priced potato chips.
    Joe stepped back and bumped into the counter.
    Rat Face stepped on a bag of chips. Cellophane crinkled. Chips crackled. Joe’s heart pounded on his eardrums.
    “My money ain’t no good here?” Rat Face yanked the little chain hooked to his thick belt and a greasy-looking wallet popped out of his jeans pocket. The wallet looked like it had been run over by a fleet of eighteen-wheelers with leaky crankcases. “I’m a paying