At the country home of Tom Piccirilli, neighbouring what was King's inspiration for the Overlook Hotel, Jack Philbin (big brother of Hertzan Chimera) says grace. A beautiful oak table wrangles more chairs than there are guests today. But there is something wrong about the special dinner. The meat on show does not look familiar and the gravy has a distinctive sniff of blood about it...

TOM PICCIRILLI: (seems too happy, considering) May I have some wine with my interview?

HERTZAN CHIMERA: (a ghostly apparition of his former self fettered to the dining table) I don't think that's a good idea, Tom. Better not to mix pleasure with business, have some broth.

Hertzan Chimera sets about ladling Tom Piccirilli and Jack Philbin tureens of it. If you squint, you can hardly see the light-refracting ghostly outline of the interviewer as crockery floats about the kitchen.

JACK PHILBIN: Hey, this soup's not very good, Hertziebabe.

HERTZAN CHIMERA: I admit I added a little something extra to yours, Jack. Perhaps it's clashing with the cumin. I assure you, though, you'll love the second course, that is if I can serve it before Tom bashes my head in with his latest poetry collection.

He commands Tom to show him what's in the hand in his lap with a smile and a slight tip of his head. He obeys, setting "THIS CAPE IS RED BECAUSE I'VE BEEN BLEEDING" on the table.

JACK PHILBIN: Gimme, gimme, gimme.

Hertzan Chimera rakes it across to him with a ghostly flick of his wrist. As Jack Philbin flips through the collection, he's oblivious to Hertzan Chimera taking off his sweatband by spiritual means revealing the neat incision carved all the way around. Tom Piccirilli can do little more than we can as Hertzan Chimera lifts he top of Jack Philbin's head off - staring in disbelief at the pinky-gray dome of Jack Philbin's exposed brain. Hertzan chimera reaches for a set of tonsil spoons as the butter in the saute pan sizzles to a golden brown.

TOM PICCIRILLI: I really would like some wine to get me in the mood for this interview. What sort of chicken-shit operation is this, Chimera?

Hertzan Chimera, poised over Jack Philbin's brain with the tongs, looks at Tom disapprovingly. He's holding out his empty glass like Oliver as the pendulum twists back and forth.

HERTZAN CHIMERA: All right. But just a little while I teach Philbin here a lesson or two in interview etiquette. While I am about my revenge, tell me something of this thing that

Philbin is sucking to pulp.

He sets the spoons down. Pours some Chateau d'Y Quem into her glass as he glances to the twisting pendulum. Hertzan Chimera picks it up the tongs and deftly severs the thalamus of Jack Philbin's brain. Jack Philbin's eyes look up as if to see what's going on, then follow Hertzan Chimera's hands as he sets his prefrontal lobe in the saute pan.

TOM PICCIRILLI: Oh Jesus, that's pretty fuckin' disgusting there, kid.

HERTZAN CHIMERA: Well, then, I think I can just make out the words of your press release. Let's see…oooh, some recognizable names there.
"This is no poetry of incidentals but a poetry of raw nerve. My admiration is instant."- Steve Rasnic Tem, author of CITY FISHING and THE BOOK OF DAYS
"This work is just more proof of the fund of Piccirilli's versatility; he's not just a horror writer, he's an artist, and this dark, astonishing verse is just that-great art."-Edward Lee, author of CITY INFERNAL and MONSTROSITY
"His voice is rich and his themes universal-even when those themes are small. That's a sign of a poetic voice at its strongest. There are no petty details in Tom's poetry, only telling details, the grit and reality of being alive."-T.M. Wright, author of SLEEPEASY and A MANHATTAN GHOST STORY
And this is poetry? I take it you're familiar with my own contribution to the annals of immortal verse. "There once was a man from Nantucket…"

TOM PICCIRILLI: Must've missed that one in my Introduction to the Classics set. I've only read the first 30 volumes.

HERTZAN CHIMERA: You've yet to get to it then…

Hertzan Chimera picks up the tongs again to scoop out a lobe.

HERTZAN CHIMERA: Tom, the brain itself feels no pain, if that concerns you. And nasty little throat-cutter Philbin here certainly won't miss this - the prefrontal lobe is the seat of manners. Ten novels, eh? Choose one at random and treat it like a $50 hooker for our readers.

TOM PICCIRILLI: Chimera, your interview technique has five unique features. I'll trade you. Stop now and I'll tell you what they are.

HERTZAN CHIMERA: Trade? How does that word taste to you, Philbin? Cheap and metallic like sucking on a greasy coin to me. Your soup is getting cold. Hertzan Chimera spoons out a second lobe and stirs it into the pan.

JACK PHILBIN: That smells great.

HERTZAN CHIMERA: You still alive? Taste then.

He slides a taste of the "second course" onto a small plate, forks a piece and slips it into Jack Philbin's open mouth.

JACK PHILBIN: Ummm, it is good. (starts to choke) Tastes like ... Grave ... Men.

TOM PICCIRILLI: (aghast) Heathen, bastard. GRAVE MEN, as you should well know, is about Priest McClaren and his younger sister Molly, who were forced to watch the murder of their parents at the hands of two desperadoes. They defended themselves against one and killed him, the other is loose.
Intrigued, aren't you, brainless whelp. Let me continue then. Though Molly is not yet eighteen, she's already made a name for herself as a bounty hunter. Priest is a drunkard who does little more than take care of his crazy grandfather, who occasionally has fits where he believes he is an Apache. At such times, Gramps cannot remember his white family or speak English. Priest half-heartedly attempts to find some stability in his life by opening a goods store with the bounty money his sister has given him. Priest's best friend is a towering ex-slave and former Union soldier named Lamarr, who is on a mission of his own.

JACK PHILBIN: I knew a Lamarr once…in the second grade we used to…

TOM PICCIRILLI: Quiet down before your tongue is cooked as well, kid. Lamarr is the bastard son of Septemus Hart, the white Southerner wealthy landowner who reigns over the rapidly expanding town of Patience. Lamarr seeks only to have Septemus admit to the fact that he is Lamarr's father, and though there is a respectful but malevolent bond between them, Septemus refuses to concede aloud to such a notion.
Priest is haunted by guilt over the death of his parents as well as the voice of his unborn child. He fears that he may wind up as crazy as his grandfather. Molly, pregnant, returns to Patience to have her baby. Now that she is no longer hunting for Dean, Priest, who can barely shoot a gun but who is a prodigy with a knife, realizes he must finally accept that responsibility.

JACK PHILBIN: A priest. I need a priest.

HERTZAN CHIMERA: Simmer…down there, boy. Now Tom, it's been said that THE NIGHT CLASS is a macabre mystery of sorts.

TOM PICCIRILLI: Hell's yeah.

HERTZAN CHIMERA: I see. And the tale is-correct me here if I'm wrong-about Caleb Prentiss, who is having an awful semester at his university. Upon return from Christmas vacation he discovers that a murder has been committed in his dormitory room: a young woman has been stabbed to death. Though no one else seems to care much about the crime, Caleb becomes obsessed with finding the killer and starts spending most of his time searching for clues about the mysterious girl, developing his final thesis based on her death.

TOM PICCIRILLI: Bingo so far.

HERTZAN CHIMERA: Well then, to continue…ah, since his sister's suicide, Caleb has suffered from stigmata-his palms bleed in imitation of the wounds of Christ whenever someone close to him dies-and lately Caleb has been bleeding a lot.

TOM PICCIRILLI: Ah, we have done our homework.

Jack Philbin finally expires and falls off his chair, the remainder of his brains slop out like so much offal.

HERTZAN CHIMERA: The maid would normally fix that up, I guess? I mean, TEN NOVELS, Tom? How the Hell does one fill so many pages?

TOM PICCIRILLI: Pure desperation and a need to pay the bills. Unfortunately, I just don't know how to do anything else. Although I made a wonderful living as a male prostitute, I didn't like the hours. Sigh…

HERTZAN CHIMERA: Can't you see that I am a ghost of my former self, Tom? I have been diminished to this sickly glowing shard of a olde Parkinson Disease. What do you think of my accent?

TOM PICCIRILLI: (smiles but says nothing for a while) Well ... if I may. There is something I really want to talk about...

HERTZAN CHIMERA: Mortality....

TOM PICCIRILLI: In a fashion. More to the point, the arch of life. What's left behind you, and what it's like to see the road ahead of you growing shorter and shorter the older you become…knowing that while the possibilities still exist, with each step you take you become that much more caught in your own groove.

HERTZAN CHIMERA: Groove…groovy…

TOM PICCIRILLI: Dealing with the dead past has always been one of the main themes in my work. I've always wanted to touch on all these different thematic bases. The approach of death…the force of tragedy…the beauty of your own convictions and loves. The idea of universal menace. I like the fact that my characters, pretty much from page one, know that they are in a world of shit and that they are going to have to claw their way out. You can't get rid of your past quite so easily. We always seem to be walking around with our pasts strapped to our backs. You can never let go of it, and it never lets go of you either.

HERTZAN CHIMERA: …letting go… (fades away....)

TOM PICCIRILLI: (after a lengthy pause) Fuck, I could go for a Quarter Pounder with Cheese right about now.