Clickers.

J. F. Gonzalez & Mark Williams.

Dedicated to Mark Williams.

(1959-1998).

Who first came up with the idea.

And Cathy J. Gonzalez.

For being there when the going got rough.

Acknowledgements.

Clickers took about six months to write, spread out over a period of three years between our various other writing and film projects. Our intention from the beginning stages of this novel was to create a tale that will entertain-this was a book born of our love for 1950s horror/science fiction *B' movies and the early novels of James Herbert, Richard Laymon and (in Mark's case) Guy N. Smith. In short: pull up a chair, make yourself some b.u.t.tered popcorn, pour yourself a tall gla.s.s of soda, turn off all the lights in the house (except for the one by which you are going to read), and pretend you're curling up on the sofa watching a late night Creature Feature on a dark and stormy night.

Thanks and acknowledgment must be given to Craig Spector, Matthew J. Pallamary, Cathy J. Gonzalez and the late Mike Baker for their encouragement and keen feedback on the first draft of this novel. Thanks are also due to Pat LoBrutto for his initial enthusiasm and suggestions; to Mary Z. Wolf at Hard Sh.e.l.l Word Factory for giving Clickers its first home as an e-book; to Bob Strauss for helping me with proofing; and to David Nordhaus, Butch Miller, and Keith *Doc' Herber at DarkTales Publications for giving Clickers the home it always deserved in paperback.

More thanks: Ray Greer for information on deep sea fishing; Buddy and Holly Martinez; Debbie Smith; all the writers who appeared in Phantasm Magazine; Cathy J. Gonzalez (for being the best wife a writer could ask for); the much-missed Afraid Magazine; Kurt and Amy Wimberger; Brian Hodge; the Friday Night Guys Without Dates Club-Tim Murphy, Brian Benison (I can't wait to quit!) and Ted Newsom (especially to Ted for all his work in the aftermath and helping to clear rights); Brian "Skippy" Moore; Rikki Rockett and the Poison guys; Alice Cooper and Brian *Renfield' Nelson for giving Mark work; The Shroud; Rikki (again), Malina Shirley, Riki Valentine, Shon Kornfeld and anybody on the No Mercy Comics Staff I may have missed; Dave DeCoteau; Charles Band and Full Moon Productions; Dave Schow; Pete Atkins; Doug Clegg and Raul Silva; Gary Zimmerman; Del & Sue Howison & Dark Delicacies Bookstore for providing a second home; Art Cover and Lydia Morano & Dangerous Visions Bookstore; John Skipp; Ramona Pearce for being way too cool; Trish and Tim Chervenak; Jesus and Glenda Gonzalez; Ivan Graves; and last but not least, anybody who paid Mark to write scripts and make cool monsters for movies. Well...almost everybody!

JFG,.

28 Jan, 2000.

Pasadena, CA.

Foreword.

This is the sixth edition of Clickers to see print (seventh if you count the recent, and brief, eBook appearance from Mundania Press...more on that in a moment). It is my first published novel, and has been in print consistently since its original publication as an eBook in 1999.

Editions prior to the Delirium reissues in 2006-2008 were riddled with varying degrees of typos and bad copy-editing. Some of the fault is mine. I was still green, more concerned with being published and making sure the story was king than with proper grammar and punctuation. Don't get me wrong a grammar and punctuation was important to me, and I took it seriously. But back then, my method of correcting and proofing my own work was radically different than it is today. Back then I had no copyeditors, proofreaders, or pre-readers. It was all me. I would write it, revise, edit, do the best I could with proofing, then send my work out with fingers crossed. Most of the time it was rejected, but sometimes I was able to place my work.

The original eBook edition by Hard Sh.e.l.l Word Factory wasn't proofed or copy-edited very well. My editor there made some good suggestions for revisions to the story (including the ending...the original ending Mark and I wrote was included in the limited edition Delirium published). But when it came to a detailed line-edit, the ball was dropped. I did my best on my end when I received the galleys, but I had read the book so many times that I was not the best judge. My old friend Richard Laymon helped me through the first third, but there were a lot of errors. I corrected as many as I could find and sent them off.

About half of those errors were corrected in the final version. When Hard Sh.e.l.l issued the book as a trade paperback six years later, I sent along a more polished copy but they never used it. Instead, they relied on that original error-ridden file.

The first trade paperback edition (from now defunct but much-missed DarkTales publications) was much cleaner. My editor there, Butch Miller, prided himself on being a grammar-n.a.z.i and we were able to clean up much of the text. Still, a few things were missed, but for the most part, the DarkTales edition was pretty clean and typo free.

Ditto the Delirium editions. Enough time had pa.s.sed by this time that I was a stronger copy-editor of my own stuff. Plus, I had a network of pre-readers and proofreaders to fall back on. Shane Ryan Staley had great copy-editor too, so between all of us we got the job done right, for once. The Delirium trade paperback (and the preceding limited edition hardcover) consisted of what I felt to be the corrected and preferred text of Clickers. I wish those few readers who had the misfortune to pick up the Hard Sh.e.l.l trade paperback had gone for this one instead.

The Mundania Press eBook is the more recent edition, and it was this edition that was the primary cause for rushing these new editions to print. Long story short a Mundania Press bought Hard Sh.e.l.l Word Factory and an employee at MobiPocket a a company that basically pushes out the various eBook formats to all the distributors and vendors - inadvertently put the entire Hard Sh.e.l.l catalog back into print, including t.i.tles in which the rights had reverted to the authors (of which Clickers was one).

Oops. You can imagine all the angry letters and emails the folks at Mundania got from authors angry that their work was available (in clear violation of copyright). I was one of them.

Because Clickers had enjoyed such a long and fruitful life and readers were still being introduced to it for the first time, many people downloaded this edition when they discovered it available. Unfortunately for them, when MobiPocket transferred the files, they used the old error-ridden version from Hard Sh.e.l.l Word Factory. To make matters worse, somehow the text got even further mangled (probably during file transfers to create the this edition). The result was the first time I received feedback from fans telling me "I bought the eBook edition of Clickers but I couldn't understand it." The first such email sent me on an Internet search and that's when I learned of the mishap. As a result, the Mundania Press eBook editions were recalled. If you are among those that bought a copy of this edition, my apologies.

If the Delirium edition was the unofficial corrected and preferred edition, this edition makes it official. Accept no subst.i.tutions. Typos be d.a.m.ned! Cheap and pulpy narrative...well, that stays. After all, first and foremost, Clickers is a pulp horror novel. It was not written with the intent to be considered great art or literature. It was written by two huge fans of pulp horror and 1950's SF/Horror B movies. It is an homage. Nothing more, nothing less. So grab the beverage of your choice, rustle up some b.u.t.tered popcorn, turn on the light, and let's travel to Phillipsport, Maine, where people are about to meet something rather nasty from the depths of the ocean.

J. F. Gonzalez.

July 27, 2010.

Altoona, PA.

Prologue.

North Atlantic Sea.

October 20th.

It was unusually cold that day.

The chilling wind licked at the surface of the water, causing frigid whitecaps on the churning waves. This section of the Atlantic, roughly fifty miles off the coast of Nova Scotia, was always cold, but never like this. Captain Kim Isaac had never seen the ocean behave this way in all his twenty years of experience at sea. It was just too weird.

Kim stood on the upper deck of the Lucky Mariner- a weathered fifty-six foot Seine Boat that he'd bought ten years ago-as it crested a rising swell. A spray of foam splashed over the railing. The burst of cursing that rose from below told him that a good portion of his crew was drenched with the icy brine.

Kim gripped the metal railing and gazed out at the ocean. He took a long pull off his old walnut pipe, letting the scented smoke warm his lungs. His mood was pensive. This excursion had been plagued with unnatural occurrences from day one. After three days at sea, his crew of seven had hauled in less than seven hundred pounds of fish. Cod and herring were usually plentiful in these waters at this time of year. He had brought in nearly two tons of Cod on one trip alone last season, but now there was almost nothing. The ship's cook, Danny Walters, told him that it could all be blamed on the overfishing. That was the rational explanation for it.

Directly above the main cabin, Kim heard his first mate, Dave Johnson, curse as he swung the wheel to avoid another swell that was rapidly approaching. The waves had been rising steadily during the past hour and the wind whipped from the north, blowing freezing cold air across the bow. The black ma.s.s of clouds from the east indicated that Mother Nature was going to bless them with a mighty storm. There had been nothing about it in the latest weather forecast. Kim shook his head in dismay. Great, just f.u.c.king great!

One of the crew sat in a skiff fifty yards out, maneuvering the far end of the gill nets. They had been dragging the nets for the past four hours and had come up with nothing-another oddity. Gill netting was constructed with a lighter gauge weave. It floated in the water, creating a purse-like shape that trapped fish in currents like the scoop of a shovel. The fishes' gills got hooked in the netting and they couldn't wiggle free because the rest of them would pile in behind, trapping the whole school. When you thought about it, it was pure torture.

But for some reason the fish were getting out this time. They were tearing themselves from the nets, leaving b.l.o.o.d.y strips of flesh and scales tangled in the weave. They were swimming madly, as if propelled by some unseen force. It had happened the day before as well. It was the first indication that this trip was in no way normal.

The second indication was when the bottom-dwellers had come up in the nets earlier that morning. Flounder, lamprey and others of their ilk were rarely seen by surface fishers. They preferred to stay on the ocean floor and suck up anything that happened to settle there. Usually they stayed far below the bottom edge of the nets.

Kim had stood on the deck and watched the men haul them up in disgust. Most of the bottom-dwellers were worthless on the open market except for the flounder and a few specialty fish. The creatures just seemed to spew up from the depths in an unending h.o.a.rd, as if they were being driven up by...something.

Forty minutes after the first wave of bottom dwellers, one of the crew yelled that they'd caught a large lobster in the nets. They tried hauling it up but before they could bring it to the surface, the net was torn apart and the creature scurried away into the deep. A moment later, another was captured. And then another. And another.

Kim had hopped down to the lower deck to catch a glimpse and couldn't believe what he saw; it was some type of crustacean, roughly three feet long. Its sh.e.l.l was deep red, darkening to black around the edges; its claws were a good foot long and serrated, making sharp little clicking sounds as it snapped at the net. Round, black marble eyes glared from long, wavering stalks. Its tail was segmented, tapering down to a needle protrusion that whispered stinging pain. In all, it resembled a cross between a mutant crab and a giant scorpion.

Kim saw the creature as the net came up in a spray of foam. The men beside him yelped in surprise as the thing clipped and wriggled through the net with a snap of its claws and slipped beneath the ocean's surface. The cut section of net floated limply in the water.

Some of the crew helped Kim bring the net up and he held it in his weathered hands. The thing had snipped through it as neatly as scissors through string. Quite a feat, considering that this was a wire-based net built to withstand the power of thousands of pounds of thrashing fish.

Kim watched the creatures periodically get caught, only to escape before the crew could drag them aboard. He tried getting Ralph Hodgson, the lead crew man, to shoot them with the high-powered rifle kept on board to fend off sharks and barracudas, but all his shots went wild or missed altogether due to the awful thrashing the boat was taking from the stormy sea.

His heart raced furiously. He looked out into the rough sea, turning his head to watch as a couple of his crewmen brought up another of the creatures amid excited yells. It snipped through the weave and scurried away with a splash as Ralph popped off a few more useless shots.

He turned to Dave who was at the helm, fighting the wheel. "What the f.u.c.k are these things?" Kim yelled.

"I don't know," Dave said through gritted teeth. He gestured out to the water. "It looks like a big school of them heading southwest. Must be what's driving the fish crazy!"

Dave shrugged and scratched his bushy head. The wind whipped at his heavy coat, rippling it like the waves of the sea. "They must be following this current. Never seen anything like it."

Kim looked out into the gray ocean. The seagulls were circling in wide, erratic circles, cawing frantically. Kim jerked a thumb toward the excited gulls. "Birds are acting real strange."

"Everything is!" Dave said. He had both hands on the wheel, his knuckles growing white as he struggled to keep the ship on course. "Everything in this part of the sea seems to be trying to get away from something."

Kim felt the boat lurch violently. He nearly lost his balance as he grabbed at the wooden railing. He righted himself; his heart still lodged in his throat. Jesus, this storm is getting worse.

Another length of net was brought up with three of the creatures hanging on by their insect-like legs. He studied the animals intently as he gripped the railing. He had never heard or read of any crab or lobster reaching the size of the things in the nets. Logic dictated that they probably dwelled on the bottom of the ocean and rarely came to the surface. If that was so, why were they coming up now?

He shook his head as the cawing of the gulls gnawed at the base of his skull. The sky was darkening rapidly. The wind was blowing stronger, the swells rising higher. The ma.s.s of dark storm clouds had grown larger and more sinister, painting the sky a dark black. The Lucky Mariner bounced off a swell, nearly knocking Kim off his feet. Some of the crew members weren't so lucky; a few of the men were thrown to the deck. Heart racing, Kim gripped the railing and made his way carefully to the ladder that led to the lower deck. He climbed down carefully and joined Ralph Hodgson.

He nudged Ralph's shoulder. "Get Jeff out of that skiff and get those nets up!"

"We pulling in?" Ralph asked sharply. He had nearly ten years of crew experience on commercial fishing vessels and the motions of the sea were disturbing him too.

"You bet your mother's a.s.s we are." Kim leaned over and yelled to the upper deck where Dave was fighting the wheel with all his strength. "Hey, Dave! We're bringing up the nets and headin' in!"

Dave acknowledged the order with a wave and steered the boat into the swell to aid in retrieving the large nets. Kim barked the order to those on deck and then turned to steal another glance at the storm before all h.e.l.l broke loose.

A commotion off toward the skiff caught his attention. The man they'd sent out to drag the net-an experienced seaman named Jeff Bowers-was yelling and slapping at the water with his oars. His screams washed toward them, high pitched, loud and clear.

"What the f.u.c.k?" Kim hissed, stepping toward the railing. He took the pipe out of his mouth and put it in his jacket pocket. His heart beat wildly. He could barely make out roiling, undulating movement below the tiny skiff as Jeff beat at the water with the oars.

The tiny skiff was listing to one side pretty badly as the net grew taut. One good wave and the small boat would capsize. Jeff was trying to cut loose the net, but the rough sea made it impossible. The rough thrashing of the boat made it appear that the net was being pulled out of Jeff's hands.

Suddenly the net attached to the skiff was yanked below and the tiny boat flipped over, spilling Jeff Bowers into the freezing ocean.

The skiff floated in the water half submerged, and finally sunk. Jeff was nowhere in sight.

It all went down so fast that Kim couldn't believe what he saw. The crew watched in stunned terror, finally gasping exclamations of shock. Kim felt the tension among his crew as Jeff's dark form broke the surface briefly.

Ralph pointed and yelled. "Man overboard!"

The heavy dark clouds finally split open and spilled their contents on the hapless crew. The rain added to the mounting confusion as the men clamored to save their lost mate.

Jeff Bowers treaded water and gasped for air as he bobbed in the ocean. A moment later he was yanked under. For good.

As the crew scrambled to save Jeff, Ralph looked at Kim. His eyes were wide and scared. It looked like he was about to scream when a heavy shock hit the bottom of the boat.

It threw Kim against the wall of the cabin. The shock tossed most of the men to the deck. They scrambled to their feet, resuming rescue duties. Kim's heart raced frantically. It was as if they'd hit bottom, but Kim knew that was impossible...not this far out!

Something had taken Jeff Bowers down and the ocean was becoming increasingly dangerous, more alien than he had ever seen it. He pushed the thoughts from his mind. If he didn't act quickly, his men were going to die out here.

"Let's get the f.u.c.k out of here!" Kim screamed. There was no sense in trying to rescue Jeff Bowers now. He was as good as dead. Kim moved across the deck and the shock wave hit again, louder and stronger, shaking the vessel. Kim stumbled, but managed to remain on his feet. It felt like the bottom of the boat was being torn apart.

Kim grabbed Ralph by the shoulders and spun him around. "You! Come with me!"

They turned and were about to climb up to the wheel when Danny appeared from below deck. His expression was grave. "Somethin's ripping the h.e.l.l out of the hull."

Kim felt his stomach drop into his bowels. "Something...?"

"I don't know what," Danny said. His voice trembled. His eyes looked like white marbles set on his black face. The intensity of Danny's fear sparked a new tremor of terror in Kim. He had never seen Danny scared of anything before. Seeing him genuinely frightened provided the reality check he needed.

"What's going on down there?" Kim shouted over the loud thunderclap. Danny motioned for Kim to follow and turned back toward the door.

Suddenly the boat lurched from some unseen impact.

The crewmen fell to the deck, trying to hold on for dear life. Kim fell and hit his face on the deck. The sharp pain of his nose breaking exploded in his mind, fueling his adrenaline. He scrambled to his feet quickly and saw that most of his crew was suffering the same fate; one man had smacked his head against the deck, while another lost his grip on the ladder and fell to the lower deck. Another man had tumbled through a window to the sound of shattering gla.s.s and garbled screams of pain. Kim almost laughed at the sight but stopped himself before he launched into a volley of giggles-the scene looked almost too comical, like out of a cartoon.

The sounds of snapping wood amid the yells of his men brought him back to reality yet again. Something was tearing the boat out from under them. He looked through the open cabin doorway and fear gripped his heart like a vice. An entire plank was missing from the side of the ship and the sea was invading the warm interior, flooding the lower deck. Holy Jesus, f.u.c.king Christ!

Kim moved forward and another lurch toppled him back onto the deck. His head thunked the wall. Stars blossomed in his field of vision. The deck listed at a forty-five degree angle. Behind him Danny and Ralph were cursing and scrambling to their feet.

Danny's scalp had been laid open during one of his falls, bathing his face and the front of his shirt with dark blood. Ralph was heaving with exertion; he hadn't suffered any physical wounds yet. Kim struggled to his feet and gripped the railing, barely feeling the blood from his broken nose. Ralph hoisted himself up and fell on his face. Danny rose on wobbly legs and helped Ralph up. Ralph appeared visibly dazed. He shook his head and spat out a broken tooth, his first battle wound. Danny and Ralph gripped the railing as they regained their composure. They had to get the f.u.c.k out of here, and they had to do it now!

Kim suddenly noticed the tension on the gill nets. There was a sharp tug and the boat lurched again. Kim weathered the sudden movement and remained standing. Danny and Ralph almost went down again but held on, cursing. Something was pulling on the nets. The same thing that had pulled Jeff Bowers to oblivion.

Kim pulled the razor-sharp scaling knife from his belt and lunged toward the nets. "Cut the G.o.dd.a.m.ned nets!" He yelled to the crew members around him. "Cut the nets! Cut the nets!" He scrambled to the railing, which was nearly under water. His head throbbed with pain. He began to hack at the line holding the main net.

Ralph brought out his own knife and hacked at the line. Danny joined them and a moment later a handful of the other crew members were scrambling to sever the lines from various points of the vessel.

Behind them they could hear Dave cursing as he throttled the engine and tried to maneuver the vessel toward sh.o.r.e. A rattled whine was emanating from the engine and Dave yelled "f.u.c.k!" and slammed his fists down on the dash as the boat shuddered with exertion. A cloud of black, oily smoke rose from the engine as the boat moved slowly. It felt and sounded like the engine was dying. Kim cursed himself as he realized what was happening; the engine was flooding. G.o.dd.a.m.n!

A moment later the mechanisms locked up and the whole thing shut down. The electrical system died, plunging the ship into darkness.

Kim's heart raced madly. The crewmen were yelling to abandon ship. Kim turned to Danny. "Get the life raft!"

Danny scrambled to the cabin as another wave crashed over the deck, bringing the sting of icy salt water.

Kim hacked at the nets, severing another line, preserving their lives for one more precious second. He huffed past Ralph and helped him sever his line. The wind picked up, howling in his ears as the ship tilted even more, slipping farther into the ocean. The howling wind and the shouts of the crew obliterated the sounds of the hull being torn open, flooding the ship further. The icy water flooded up to his knees. He was hardly aware of it. He was so involved in getting the nets cut, getting his men on the life raft and off the ship that he didn't even hear the rising screams of his men. Screams that rose suddenly and were cut off before they had the chance to register in his brain.

Kim's knife slashed through the last line. He heaved a deep breath and turned to Ralph, who was no longer there. Kim blinked and caught a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye. He turned.

The trident punched through his chest so quick that he didn't even see it coming. The force of the blow pushed him back into the water. His consciousness ebbed as he felt himself rise to the surface of the water. Kim tried to get up, but found that he was already in motion. He was moving through the water, being dragged down into the murky depths. He caught just a fleeting glimpse of the Lucky Mariner as it went down in the storm, and then everything went black and Kim Isaac knew no more.