Way back in the year 2002, I had the opportunity to interview Ottawan-born author Queenie Tirone but turned her down in favour of a plethora of world class horror novelists that have made Terror Tales the great plug'n'play-horror portal it is today.
Now, in the year 2020, as a yet-to-be-discovered rotting corpse in a cat-piss-stinking back alley, having paid my respects to my grieving family members and laid my aching soul to rest, I have found a back door into this now-famous novelist's psyche and I have resorted to incubus interview at her gasping, and might I say slightly voyeuristic, behest.

HERTZAN CHIMERA: At what point did you realize your work was gonna incinerate the Golden Section of the traditional horror aesthetic?

QUEENIE TIRONE: I dunno. I guess I always kinda knew I would create something different then what the horror world had ever been before. I was always the strange one really. When I was 16 I realized for the first time people enjoyed my writings. I used to hide them from everyone till my best friend, Anna, got me to let them loose on the world. At 21, I got my first publishing credit for my poem "Soulless" at Art of Horror. Since then, I haven't stopped writing.

HERTZAN CHIMERA: Back then, you were a member of HAN (the Horror Author's Network), how did your membership of that august society mould and shape the writer you are today?

QUEENIE TIRONE: The people there felt like a family to me. I could share stuff with them I couldn't share in other writing groups. They really cared about me, and I them. I still think of them as a stepping stone of my career.

HERTZAN CHIMERA: You started off with your webcam presence - when did you decide to take the big plunge and have the transmitter/receivers surgically implanted into your frontal lobes and what has your life both offline and online been like since you went LIVE?

QUEENIE TIRONE: Well, I was always sort of a big ham of sorts. I love people and I love, I guess, to watch. Webcams are fun to play with. Anyone can be a star with one, and the internet was always a great tool for me to express my creative urges. Aw, that's crazy talk - did you ever do Tarot cards?

HERTZAN CHIMERA: Tarot cards?

QUEENIE TIRONE: You know, like weird Gypsy Tarot cards.

HERTZAN CHIMERA: I don't remember anything after about the meteor hit in 2018. I may have done once, in my youth. I don't really recall the details but...

QUEENIE TIRONE: (shows him the Three of Cups) Is this one any good?

HERTZAN CHIMERA: Nah, it's not so great. Here's the one I'd recommend. Hertzan Chimera pulls out the Lightning Struck Tower.

QUEENIE TIRONE: (gives him a slight smile) You know what that card means right?

HERTZAN CHIMERA: That I am gonna get struck by lightning?

QUEENIE TIRONE: No silly, it means change is coming for you. You will come through a touch spot a stronger person. Not a bad card really. Do you like horror?

HERTZAN CHIMERA: I hate horror. But your writing I really like. This book alone called The Blood Legacy is worth about $500 if you have a signed short-contract P.O.D. trade paperback edition from the early years. That was one of the most thrilling books I ever read. I know the guy who owns a signed copy and lent it for use once - I refuse to give it back. Tell me something about why you wrote it in THAT style.

QUEENIE TIRONE: I love the undead and I wanted a fresh new look to them. Something no one has seen yet relating to vampires. I love vampires and I think they really needed to be shown as the evil, unnatural creatures they are. I mean, I love Anne Rice, but I think I have had enough of the sappy, humanish vampires. I wanted monsters that had no clue to be human. I wanted 250 pages of hard core vampire Horror! Not Vampire fluff! Annabella is a breed all her own. Every child she creates is a mad monster. Quenya was the grisly result of Annabella trying to make family. Lets just say, A vampire linked to Lilith is a bad thing. I want people to be so confused by these beings, and horrified. I want them to feel the pain of these creatures, but at the same time realize they are monsters. I want to see if I can make people truly pitty a monster.

HERTZAN CHIMERA: (a tear in his eye) That was not the way I saw it.

QUEENIE TIRONE: I'm sure it doesn't matter how you saw it. I have promised to go to a vampire LARP, but I'll stick around if you'd like.

HERTZAN CHIMERA: No, you go to your LARP, I will hang around you and your blood sucking kind and take notes for a later incubus segment.

QUEENIE TIRONE: (with a quick flick of her head, Queenie Tirone goes online, LIVE & DIRECT in a ghoulish LARP of her own concoction) The poor players get surrounded by a band of roaming, undead Zombies who are hungry for human blood! They have made me their Queen, realizing I am evil too... FEED MY MINIONS! (Queenie does rock, paper, scissors with a person playing a human to see who wins the challenge) HA HA! I am truly TOUGHER than you! (bites into her victim and lets the blood ooze forth all over her bare breasts) Mmm... maple syrup.

QUEENIE TIRONE: (presents Hertzan Chimera with his own ruptured kidney; the piss is still dripping out of it as she holds it tightly in her grip) You can open your eyes now. This belongs to you. Sorry about ripping it out of you in that back alley, dear. It just that I was so hurt you ignored me in 2002. With technology today, I kept it semi-together for you. Look, there's only a few holes in it.

HERTZAN CHIMERA: Oh... uh, thanks a lot Queenie... I really appreciate it...

QUEENIE TIRONE: No, Doofus... it's your kidney. Blow on it, play us a piss tune! Hertzan Chimera leans forward and blows into the piss-gaping organ of his former living self, then abruptly straightens up and holds the small of his back in pain.

HERTZAN CHIMERA: Arrrghhh! Ah Jeez... Christ...

QUEENIE TIRONE: Are you okay? you look like you have to pee or something.

HERTZAN CHIMERA: (grimacing) Very funny. It's just my stupid back. I'll be all right in a minute...

She notices him adjust something under his shirt.

QUEENIE TIRONE: What is that? It looks like radio active rubber pants for seniors!

HERTZAN CHIMERA: Oh... uh... It's just this elastic thing I have to wear for lumbar support...

QUEENIE TIRONE: What, like a girdle? hey, let's fire up this psychotropic device and see if our gurdles don't unwrap!

HERTZAN CHIMERA: Maybe now you undertand why I can't get a resurrection date.

QUEENIE TIRONE: Yeah, well, you're not the only one. All us writers are weirdos. Everybody I know has totally fucked up problems... It seems like only stupid people have good lives...

HERTZAN CHIMERA: (sarcastically cheering her on) That's the spirit - dis the living!

QUEENIE TIRONE: I mean, I'm like 39, and I already have 101 short stories published, 75 poems, 8 novels, a spot on world tour, and a small dog named Foo Foo. Do you think anyone gives a crap? Only my internet friends. I don't particularly want fame really. I want to share my creative spark and inspire others like me. I want a young girl who had a terrible life like mine, who thought she could never amount to anything to look at me as a model and say, wow, I can be something. I want my horror to inspire hope in a sense. I like writing horror because it makes things I have been through less horrific. Sometimes, the things that hurt me come out into the story, and I can share the horror of that moment with people.

HERTZAN CHIMERA: Really?

QUEENIE TIRONE: Naw, I dont have a dog. I made that up...

HERTZAN CHIMERA: We all need lies and deceit in our lives, like hand washing for those with an Obsessive Compulsive disorder such as us writers, living or dead, eh?

QUEENIE TIRONE: I know. I think I need to see sunlight for a while. That might get this glossy, dead pan-pale successful writer look gone. You know how I met my fiancée Josh? Thru gaming. Yup, I was a geek who played games, went to conventions and spent any free time surfing the net and making web pics and websites. I had no life.

HERTZAN CHIMERA: That has a ring of truth.

QUEENIE TIRONE: Yup. But I met cool people like Namru and Jessie and Crow in that time. They draw me as pics and helped my comics live. You can find them at my archived website from that era if your interested: http://demonalissa.shattered-roses.org

HERTZAN CHIMERA: Sounds like the place to be if your jacked up to the web.

QUEENIE TIRONE: Heh, its fun. I loved the internet. It gave me a place to be creative and show off my stuff. Do you know what its like to be confused at my age?

HERTZAN CHIMERA: I won't even dignify that with a response.

QUEENIE TIRONE: I wonder if you really liked all these old records or if you only like the fact that nobody else likes them? I collect crap too. I have a whole collection of wolf stuff that clutters my tiny apartment.

HERTZAN CHIMERA: (a sore subject) Who knows?

The phone rings. Hertzan Chimera ignores it.

QUEENIE TIRONE: Aren't you going to get that? It could be a publisher. Or a Zombie.

HERTZAN CHIMERA: I have no desire to talk to anyone who would be calling me on your old phone...

After several more RINGS the machine picks up and we hear the message. After the BEEP there's a long fumbling pause...

HERTZAN CHIMERA: I knew it... It's Muhammed Rafi again...
Jaan Pehechan Ho,
Jeena Aasaan Ho,
Dil Ko Churane Walon,
Aankh Na Churavo,
Naam Tho Batavo..
Aaj Ki Yeh Shaam Javan,
Yun Na Chali Jaaye,
Aaj Ki Yeh Shaam Javan,
Yun Na Chali Jaaye,
Phir Se Na Aayegi Yeh Kisi Ke Bulaaye,
Phir Se Na Aayegi Yeh Kisi Ke Bulaaye..