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    Nightlife: Hazardous Material
    Nightlife: Hazardous Material
    Nightlife: Hazardous Material
    Ebook88 pages55 minutes

    Nightlife: Hazardous Material

    By Matthew Quinn Martin

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    About this ebook

    The story of monster hunter Jack and his partner Beth continues in Nightlife: As the Worm Turns…but first, take a short stroll down one of Nightlife's darkest streets in this horror e-novella praised as “thrilling, edgy, and scary as hell” (Jason Starr, internationally bestselling author of The Pack).

    Twenty-seven-year-old Jarrod Foster has hit a dead end. He spends his days disposing of hazardous waste and his nights wondering where it all went wrong. While gutting an abandoned roller rink, Jarrod discovers a bricked up video arcade still stocked with vintage games…which, three decades ago, was the site of the largest mass shooting in New York history.

    Jarrod’s boss lets him keep one of the arcade games—an oddity called Polybius that no one seems to have ever heard of. Jarrod hopes to sell it and start a new life, but one grim night, he drops a quarter into the game…and the game drops Jarrod right into a nightmare.

    As his life spirals into darkness, and his actions begin to mirror those of the long-dead spree killer, only one question remains…is Jarrod playing a game, or is the game playing him?
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPocket Star
    Release dateMay 11, 2015
    ISBN9781501108860
    Nightlife: Hazardous Material
    Author

    Matthew Quinn Martin

    Matthew Quinn Martin was born in Allentown, Pennsylvania and raised in New Haven, Connecticut. However, it wasn’t until he moved to Manhattan that he realized he was a writer. These days, he lives on a small island off the North Atlantic coast of the United States where it gets quiet in the winter…perhaps too quiet.

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      Book preview

      Nightlife - Matthew Quinn Martin

      ONE

      Jarrod Foster stared through the mud-splattered windshield of his boss’s pickup truck. He wanted a cigarette. That was nothing new. He’d wanted a cigarette at least once a day since he’d quit smoking. And like every other day, in every other way, Jarrod settled for wanting.

      The November weather had swung from snow to sleet to rain and back to sleet again. He downed the dregs of the cart coffee Ludwig had bought him. At seventy-five cents, it might not have been the most extravagant display of largesse. But too often, seventy-five cents was exactly seventy-five cents more than Jarrod had in his pocket. And although he never came out and admitted as much, his boss seemed to have picked up on that fact.

      How’d we land this gig, anyway? Jarrod asked, staring at the bombed-out Greenpoint strip mall they’d strip to bare brick over the next two weeks.

      My motto is this . . . Ludwig pulled a pack of Newport Lights from his shirt pocket. You want a job done well, you gotta pay. You want it done cheap, call Ben Ludwig. His boss had said similar things to Jarrod in the two months he’d worked for him. It was the reason his under-the-radar removal service was so popular with property owners dodging the expense and paperwork of a licensed hazmat crew.

      Jarrod tried not to stare as his boss peeled the cellophane off the pack and let it flutter to the floor. Ludwig pinched out a cigarette and started tapping the filter against the side of the steering wheel. Tap-tappity-tap-tap. This was a ritual for Jarrod’s boss, and he performed it with the casual precision of a priest celebrating mass. Like any longtime congregant, Jarrod knew what came next: another ten hours of soul-breaking monotony.

      Ludwig stuck the cigarette into his mouth, the filter lost under his rusty walrus mustache. He shook the pack in Jarrod’s direction. One single cigarette stuck out, practically begging Jarrod to take it.

      I told you. I don’t smoke. He’d wanted to add anymore. I don’t smoke anymore. That’s what he’d wanted to say. He’d learned, however, that that phrase was an open door to folks still in the habit. Eventually, they’d push their way in, and they’d bring their cigarettes with them. He’d been good. He hadn’t taken so much as a puff in more than a year, not even when he could still afford them. And sticking it out might have been the only thing he’d done in the twenty-eight years he’d spent on Planet Earth that he was truly proud of.

      Don’t smoke, huh? Ludwig grinned, pack still extended. You will. All that stuff we end up breathing on this gig . . . makes cigarette smoke taste like fresh mountain air.

      I’m cool, Jarrod lied, and looked away from the pack. His eyes returned to the strip mall, a one-story expanse of urban blight so heavily boarded up by warped plywood it looked like a wet cardboard box.

      Okay, bucko. Ludwig produced a lighter and sparked up. Sooner we get in there, sooner we get cancer, he added, hopping from the truck.

      Jarrod followed, crowbar in hand, kicking wet, gray snow from his still-stiff work boots. As they crossed the small lot, the rain hit his skin like a shower of needles. Ludwig hefted his bolt cutters and clipped through the padlock. The doubled chain fell against the brick with a scraping clack.

      Great, Jarrod said, noticing that the seam between the doors was rimed with rust. He yanked hard on the handle. Nothing shifted, except perhaps his shoulder from its socket.

      Didn’t expect that to work, didja?

      Jarrod said nothing. He eyed a spot where the seam appeared weakest and took aim with the flat of his crowbar. Together, they wrenched open a V-shaped gap just wide enough to slip through. A blast of chalky air hit them. Jarrod covered his mouth with the back of his hand, again remembering Ludwig’s words about what they’d breathe in on this job. Fiberglass? Asbestos? Black mold? Who knew?

      Ludwig clicked on his flashlight as they padded inside. The beam hit a shattered mirror ball and splintered into countless fading spokes. Wilted acoustic tiles hung above them like dead petals, and the floor felt soft, rotted. Ludwig coughed and lit a fresh smoke. She’s a beaut, eh?

      Jarrod’s eyes were fixed on the glowing end of Ludwig’s cigarette and nothing else. What?

      But his boss had already moved on, creeping toward a sagging Formica counter. He leaned over it, inspecting a gaping hole in the Sheetrock. "Can always count on the bums to take anything obviously valuable. Copper pipe and wire’ll keep you set for a while with hooch or crack or whatever poison you like. Keep you set for a good long while."

      I’ll keep that in mind.

      You don’t do no drugs, do ya?

      Only Advil. And only after you make us work too long.

      Oh, hardy-har-har. Ludwig extended two fingers in the direction of Jarrod’s feet, a warning. Careful—lotta rusty nails stickin’ up in here. Can’t have you getting lockjaw on the job. Advil ain’t gonna cut it there. You got that Obamacare, by the way?

      Jarrod bit his lip. His boss paid him as fair a wage as he could; he knew that. But while it was enough to pull him out of the Medicaid safety net, it wouldn’t cover even the Bronze level of the exchanges. Not in New York, and not after he splurged on luxuries like rent and heat. For Jarrod, health insurance was as much a fantasy as Russian caviar or Fabergé eggs.

      You hear me? I asked if you got that Obama—

      No.

      You should. Ludwig grunted. It ain’t great, but it’s better than nothing.

      Jarrod nodded, wondering if that would be the chorus that resounded through the rest of his life.

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