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    Gallery of Horrors
    Gallery of Horrors
    Gallery of Horrors
    Ebook74 pages1 hour

    Gallery of Horrors

    By Steve Wands

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    About this ebook

    Henry always wanted to be a famous artist. He wanted his work in galleries around the world. He wanted to be the next Warhol, but before he could figure out how to do that the world as he knew it came to a screeching halt.

    Ever wonder what an artist would in a world full of the living dead? FInd out in Gallery of Horrors, a Stay Dead short story.

    Also includes a sample of Horror Stories: A Macabre Collection and the first three chapters of the Stay Dead novel.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSteve Wands
    Release dateApr 8, 2011
    ISBN9781458185327
    Gallery of Horrors
    Author

    Steve Wands

    STEVE WANDS is a comic book letterer working on top titles at DC Comics, Image, Vertigo, BOOM! Studios, Random House, and Kodansha Comics (to name a few). He also designs, inks, and illustrates for those, and other, companies. He’s the author of the Stay Dead series, and is a writer of short stories. When not working he spends time with his wife and sons in New Jersey. Oh, and he drinks a lot of coffee.Steve has just wrapped illustrating The Fallen for Cemetery Dance Publications, which is written by Bram Stoker Award winning writer Brian Keene, based on a story by Richard Chizmar and Jonathan Schaech, colored by Gabriel Cassata.His work appears in titles like the mega-hit manga Attack on Titan, All Star Batman, Batman, Cognetic, Black Road, Descender, Frostbite, The Flash, Trinity, The Spire, Gotham Academy, FBP, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, Supergirl, Action Comics, Garfield, Adventure Time, Regular Show, Next Testament, Peanuts, Six-Gun Gorilla, and many others.

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      Book preview

      Gallery of Horrors - Steve Wands

      GALLERY OF HORRORS

      A Stay Dead short story

      By Steve Wands

      * * * * *

      SMASHWORDS EDITION

      * * * * *

      Published by:

      Steve Wands on Smashwords

      Gallery of Horrors (A Stay Dead short story)

      Copyright © 2011 by Steve Wands

      Cover Design and Layout by Apparatus Revolution

      http://www.staydeadrev.com

      All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

      This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

      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 person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

      * * * * *

      GALLERY OF HORRORS

      A Stay Dead short story

      * * * * *

      Henry always wanted to be a famous artist. He wanted his work in galleries around the world. He wanted to be the next Warhol, even though he’d never been to an art gallery and hadn’t the slightest idea on how to get his work into one. It was something he didn’t understand, and now that the world was coming down all around him, he doubted he ever would. As any good artist, he was full of doubt about his work. Was it worth someone’s time to look at it? Would anyone get it? Did it transcend? He could never really answer his own questions, but he felt good about his work and others found it interesting enough. He had hundreds of paintings piled up in his studio, many of which had never been seen by anyone other than himself and his muse—Hairball, a cat he rescued from the curb. Henry named him Hairball because her coat was a sporadic mix of orange, brown, white, and black and… well, she just looked like a hairball.

      Lately he hadn’t the desire to create anything. All of his art materials sat untouched, collecting dust. His desk was covered in old eraser bits, ink spatters, and had a blank piece of paper sitting atop it. The blank paper sat there, mocking him. Henry couldn’t think of anything worthy of putting down on the page. He simply wanted to go to Bello’s and get a drink with his friends, but that was impossible now. He hoped at least some of them were alive and surviving too, but he doubted it. All he could do was look outside and make sure Hairball didn’t jump out any windows in search of birds to tear apart.

      Henry still had power in his home (and from what he could tell the entire town did too), though he was reluctant to use it in a way where it could draw attention to his haven. He grew bored, uninspired, and lonely. Despite his love for his cat, he needed to see a living, breathing, person; one he could converse with. He started talking to Hairball a few days ago, and, more often than not, he would talk to himself. The last person he saw alive was his neighbor, two weeks ago, when she left for the airport—hours before all flights were grounded indefinitely. He hoped she made it too, but figured her pretty little corpse was out and about in search of flesh, like the rest of the dead things that he’d seen about town. Some he knew, some he didn’t.

      Henry lived in Shark’s Key, a desolate little town full of nothing and no one. It was in the middle of nowhere. The nearest hospital was over an hour away, as was the police station. The closest mall was twice that. After nearly three weeks of mind-warping isolation Henry had to venture outside of his home. He didn’t want to, but for the sake of Hairball and himself he had to. His food supply had been gone days ago and so was the cat litter; resulting in odors that would rival that of the rotting dead that wandered about outside.

      He crept out his back door and sprinted to the back of his neighbors’ home—the one who left weeks ago. She locked all the doors and windows but didn’t board any of them up like some of his other neighbors had done. Using a large rock from the yard he broke the window and entered the home.

      Dust littered the home’s furnishings. Henry quickly looked through the first level of the home. Finding nothing amiss he rummaged through the kitchen. He found a six-pack of light beer and immediately opened a bottle and chugged it down. It was warm, but he didn’t care. He grabbed a few a things and ran back to his place where he then unloaded his findings. He repeated this a few more times before venturing to the next home. He broke in much the same way, using a rock to smash the back door window to gain entry. This home had much more dust and a very putrid odor scraping at the back of his throat. He didn’t get too far inside before

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