ALICE

Alice is one among many serialized works by Iron Pyramid Publications.  Alice is a serialized story of a teenage girl from a small town in Iowa, which was created and developed to exceed the horror tale, “The Exorcist.”  R. D. Peters writes and publishes with targets in mind, and ‘Alice’ has proven to become a flagship of his horror genre publishing sector.  This is horror genre written for the teen age market, although it does come with the parental guidance warning.  Iron Pyramid has found, those between the ages of fourteen and forty are best affected and entertained by her young life experiences.

Due to the popularity of ‘Alice,’ I have an entire page devoted to her alone.  Another aspect of targeting is, Alice was designed to be movie specific for mass media marketing, while copies of the books containing the character are limited and for promotional purposes primarily.  Alice became part of a series from Iron Pyramid known as, “Things Less Human,” a collection of fourteen printed works. Below, one can read excerpts from several chapters of Alice’s evolution.

ALICE – CHAPTER ONE:

ALICE

            At the age of fourteen Alice had been sure it was love.  Her romance of six months with the new boy from California had been like a dream come true.  His arrival in her small town of Jasper, Iowa, had been more like that of a knight in shining armor, one sent to rescue her from the hum drum farm boys.  The latter were ones who were more concerned with the latest truck models than noticing how she had flowered into a beautiful young lady.  She had hardly been noticed by anyone until Darien moved into town.  He had been fast to notice Alice.  He was the only boy who had never made of her last name, Rex…Alice Rex..  The other boys had always made barking sounds, or called to her as though she were a dog.
            Darien Escobar was an olive skinned mix of Anglo-Spanish descent, with a Swedish blonde mother and an old world Spanish father, Darien’s face dark, bordered with jet black hair, and blue eyes set in the center like electric lights.  At seventeen he was as tall as a man and his deep voice masculine and harmonic, almost hypnotic in Alice’s ears.  Within the first month of their acquaintance he had used the word to utter the words, “I love you.”  No one had ever said this to Alice other than her parents, and that did not count.
            Alice, tall with long blonde hair cascading down past her shoulders in a tight rippled set, had been Darien’s first choice from the young ladies of Jasper.  She was suddenly transformed into a princess among her girl friends, a newly discovered joy to her parents who had thought she might become a wall flower, and adorned by Darien’s parents who allowed his and her voyage into adult solitudes.  In the six months of romance, Alice went from dolls to drugs, from the science class definition of reproduction examples with amoebas, to sex with Darien.  In the six months of their dating she went from romance to ruin… Darien’s seed growing within her belly.
            Darien’s seed would not have been so much a problem for Alice.  The problem was he had moved on to another girl.  There were those inevitable  questions from all, “What’s going on with you and Darien?  Haven’t seen you together lately.”  And then there came the obvious lies, she explaining all was well for now, as the seed continued to grow.

ALICE – CHAPTER TWO

ALICE  ll

            Blood was everywhere.  There was the blood of the carcasses of the rats, but unfortunately it was at a minimum compared with that of Alice’s.  She had sustained untold bites from their piranha-like teeth as the mother rat and siblings turned to devour their hostess.  It seemed their sixth sense had forewarned the mother rat and brood of Alice’s impending plans.  But, it was the blood that held reverence over the scene.
            When Alice awoke, it was the blood that seemed to instantly sober her mind as she noted the chair centered in a pool of shimmering crimson liquid.  Her mind swooned with disbelief.  There were some seconds where she was not sure if this was reality, or part of a terrible dream.  AND THEN!!!  SHE BECAME TOTALLY AWARE!
            Again Alice gave out a piercing scream that would be suppressed by the rock music of the neighbor’s party.  Only now did she remember the events that lead to the blood drenched attic.  She could see her hand still twitching as it dangled from the handcuff on the oak chair.  She had had to tear the hand free to reach far enough forward and recover the knife, to kill the rodent attackers.  She had killed them all except one which she remembered it fleeing as an unrecognizable mass of blood and hair across the floor and down the stairs.  Everything had happened too swiftly.  She lifted the stub of her forearm, trembling from the horror of the bloody veins, arteries and broken bone protruding from the useless limb.  Now, the question was, would she live until the ice melted and released the keys?
            There was no time for waiting.  Alice used the knife to cut the string holding the ice and chipped frantically with its glistening blade at the frozen mass until it hit at precisely the correct spot, fracturing it like cold glass.  There was now her whimpering of more realized pain as drugs and alcohol seemed to be vanishing rapidly with her accelerated loss of blood and sweat.  The world around her seemed to be a blur of glistening red.  As Alice unlocked the last restraint the rock music seemed to grow fainter… there was then oblivion.
            When Alice awoke, she was much weaker, and still the bloody stub of her forearm pulsed with blood, but now much slower, as if the well was almost emptied.  There was only one spark of life, of panic left.  Adrenaline pushed her up, to her feet, down the stairs to the cook stove in the kitchen.  Blue flames leapt up high when Alice turned a front burner on.  There was a sudden frying sound, cracking like that of bacon frying as she plunged the stub into the fire to stop the fatal bleeding.  A moment later she collapsed in a blank stupor within a kitchen chair.  It was morning before Alice became conscious again of the events of the night before.  Where the night’s hours had gone, she had no recollection.

CHAPTER THREE:

T-REX

            Alice lay awake for another couple of hours before falling asleep.  She was not sure of what she had seen.  It was apparent it was rat-like, and that was all she knew.  But then again, there was something wrong with it, yet all had happened too fast.  It was a fearful image that at last she rationalized was the half mutilated leavings of her slaughter.  The fear be damned, she would kill it later, the same she had killed the other members of its litter.  Alice drifted into a tormented sleep.
            The night became one of nightmares.  Alice’s first of several was that which focused on her mother.  It was not  that the dream contained anything which Alice had not experienced, it was just that it was the exhumation of punishment she had long ago learned how to avoid through submission or avoidance.  Perhaps that was why she had kicked her father, he had never intervened to protect Alice from Theresa’s rages.
            The first hours of nightmares had primarily been about Theresa, and then they turned to more recent events associated with the loss of her hand.  The dream placed Alice in the midst of an ancient cemetery.  Many of the tombstones were either broken or leaning due to the bog-like texture of the soil.  It was a place of over grown grass that laid in soft mounds to conceal the mire and potholes created by unseen rodents sensed to be supernatural by dent of their excavations.  Skeletal remains strewn about revealed the unabated foraging of rats perhaps the size of dogs, judging from the openings of their burrows.  There was a cold fog that prevented her seeing far beyond the immediate cemetery, except to note the silhouette of dead and decaying trees in the dusk or dawn, of which it was she was not sure.  Alice only knew fear, the tremendous fear that a giant rodent would surface at any moment and devour her completely.  It was just at that time of relative torment when a rat of horrid odor and dimension burst to the surface from a grave burrow to tear her hand from the wrist with its saber-like teeth.  Blood spewed forth with a surreal force that caused her arm to flail like an unmanned garden hose, blood spraying the surrounding tombstones and running down as some hot steamy crimson paint.

CHAPTER FOUR:

THE  RITE

            Alice was instantly fearful her mother had discovered the hand in the jar of wine and was just testing to see if she was lying.
            Again, Theresa doubled over laughing at her own human frailty, something she did not willingly offer.  Alice excused herself from the room since her mother was one prone to change of moods from second to second.
            Alice hurried to her room where she was fast to close the door and lock it, to hurriedly open the closet and peer into the jar.  Yes, the hand was still there, but there was a wet droplet of wine streaming down the jar onto the floor.  “Yeah, too weird,” Alice reminded.
            Suddenly, Alice became aware of the fact that there may be something else going on.  She had never considered it before.  She had never once brought it to consciousness.  But now, she first thought that there just might be the possibility of the house having a supernatural connection.  After all, there was the oak chair in the attic in which a man had been murdered execution style.  She had never been one inclined to superstition except for the fun it provided, using a Ouija board with friends at slumber parties.  Alice had always assumed the supernatural was more a hoax than substance.  But now, with the revelation of the murder by her mother, she knew anything was possible.
            Alice clothed herself and went downstairs to the kitchen where she was surprised to see her father, Roland, sitting at the bar counter.  He was shaven and dressed for work, drinking coffee that still left a fresh brewed aroma in the air.  The newspaper he was reading helped to shield him with its stretched open pages held high to conceal most of his front torso.  A cigarette sent a curl of gray smoke upward from where it rested between two fingers that also held a page of the newspaper.  The radio on the counter squawked barely discernable words through its cheap plastic construction.
            There was a long silence as Alice went about the business of preparing her breakfast with one hand, perhaps making a little more noise than she usually would.
            “Do you need help, Alice?” Roland asked.
            I can take care of myself, just like I’ve always done.  What brought you out of the basement… run out of gin?”
            “Smart ass!  Goin’ to be a smart ass just like your mom ain’t cha?”
            “Just seemed logical.”
            “Nevertheless, same smart ass mouth like your momma’s got.”
            “But you’ll never tell her that, will you?” Alice challenged, looking her father in the eyes for the first time since the two started conversing.  He glared back for a moment, and then at the newspaper.
            Without taking his eyes from the pages of the newspaper, Roland answered Alice’s question.
            “I left the basement for the simple reason that we have a little friend down there.  One of those super rats.  It’s monstrous in size… big as a cat.  Looks like it may have ran into nuclear waste or something down in the sewers.  It’s a horrible looking creature. I’m damned lucky I didn’t get bit.”
            “You saw a rat?”
            “Yeah, a rat!  But not just any rat… a sick rat.  It won’t be here for long.  I put out poisoned baits.”
            “Hope that gets it.  I just loathe rats.”
            “Who doesn’t?  But I’ve got to go,” Roland stood up, sipping his coffee for one last gulp, and then walked over to the sink to pour the remainder down the drain.  “And, don’t be giving your mother any crap today, understand?”
            “I understand.  Don’t piss her off or otherwise when you get home she’ll kick your ass,” Alice retorted.
            Roland only glared at Alice, knowing she was telling the truth.  He then stormed out the door, Alice feeling good that she had put him in his place.  With all she had been through, the one positive thing was that she no longer would answer to her father as a child.  She had gained her independence.

CHAPTER FIVE: 

BEYOND  THE  FENCE

            Alice slipped into the mysterious sleep of drugs and alcohol that was becoming less and less predictable.  It seemed the dreams could either take her  to normal night visages, or to places now more and more suspect as supernatural.  This sleep was of the latter description.
            A visitor was within the room, one that had seemed to appear vapor-like, as if from steam under the bed, to form as if from a plume of smoke at its foot.  It took human shape, yet was masked by a gray hooded robe.  The hood only revealed black within, but a voice dark and vacant of human emotion spoke sardonic syllables to bring Alice from out her trance.  Its long ribbon-like index finger pointed to her still open window, the October evening now bitterly chilly.  She obeyed out of fear and awe as such a classic specter confirmed her beliefs of a supernatural presence within the house.
            Alice found the rain still falling in strands of silver curtains through the continual lightning.  The back yard was nothing less than a small lake a few inches deep.  At first she did not see what her intruder intended.  And then she was frightfully aware as she noted something atop the grave of the aborted baby.  The revelation only came in bits and pieces through volleys of lightning, and then total darkness.  There was some kind of creature atop the grave, one not first distinguishable.  Alice thought it only a wild animal from the nearby woods that had found its way into the yard where a privacy fence section had collapsed.  And then there was the sudden realization it was the rat thing.  It was not until it sat upon its hind legs that she could make out its appearance.  Having grown to the size of a small dog it was much easier to note it contained both human and rat features, although the rodent portion was more predominant.  There it sat, eating the carcass of the baby.

CHAPTER SIX:

THE  MYSTIC  HAND

            Alice proceeded to follow the lake’s edge until she was returned to the vast cemetery and the path leading through the woods to the fence opening.  Already, hers and the mutated rodent’s footprints at entering were erased by the ooze.  There was a septic odor about the place, yet it held overwhelming attraction as nothing she had ever experienced before, but for what reason she did not know.  The question of why only held momentary concern as she reluctantly turned to follow the path into the woods.
            There had been no other thoughts of Alan due to the sensation of entering the netherworld.  Alice’s feelings upon entering were that of euphoric enchantment, and so intense was the feeling that it still lingered with pleasure beyond that of the mix of gin and drugs at evening.  It was as though she was walking to and from a dream when she elected to do so.  Her only regret was, she had not opened the door of the cathedral and entered.
            “Oh!” Alice gasped with surprise.  Suddenly she was aware of Alan standing on the path in front of her.  She had nearly walked into him since her eyes had been looking downward.
            “So, you’re back again?” Alan asked in his strong masculine voice.  “Where do you go down there?”
            “Just for a walk in the fields.  It’s recommended by my doctor to help with the blood disease.  It seems I get faster and faster each day.  I’m back far earlier than usual, and I hate getting back to Mother so soon.”  Alice hoped Alan would catch her hint and invite her over to his house for awhile.
            There was instead only the short reply, “Okay.  See ya’ later.”
            Alice returned to her house with renewed agitation as to her appearance.  “It must be my looks,” she thought with a bitter frown as she sank into instant depression, falling across the plush sofa and peering out the window.  It was an angry glare that caused her to tremble ever so slightly.  And even if she was now at the perfect weight, without a blemish on her face, and with the best hair style, there was now the fact she only had one hand.  She could never be perfect again.

CHAPTER SEVEN:

THE  CATHEDRAL

            Friday night was slow in coming since Alice was anxious to see Alan again and to be with a boy in a romantic way.  She wanted to feel pretty again.  This would be a new experience, being the only girl among several boys with their own rock band.  And it had been months since she had done anything social with anyone.  Alice was nervous when the door opened to enter Alan’s house.
            There were three other boys with the names of Seth, Bill and John.  Alice was immediately handed a beer and Alan put the band in action by grabbing his guitar to begin jamming a very loud metal tune.  It being a tune so unfamiliar she was sure it was one of the band’s originals.  Their musical sounds boomed for an hour with unrelenting passion.  There were only momentary pauses for beer or marijuana.  Alice had brought her own supply of pills, finding the beer worked just as well as gin to speed the effect.
            Upon placing his guitar on a stand, Alan came over to where Alice was seated on the sofa, pushing her against its back with a forceful kiss.  His hand was fast to find her breasts and she let him touch her as he pleased.  His hand soon had her jeans open while his fingers urgently probed the wet recess of her love part.
            “Let’s go to my bedroom,” he whispered breathless with the heat of the moment.
            “Sure,” she agreed.
            A minute later Alice lay across the bed ready to yield herself to hers and Alan’s desires.  But upon his removing her blouse and bra, a sudden waking nightmare took hold of her mind.
            “No, I can’t,” she stated with the firm fear that put its grip on her.  All she could remember was the pregnancy with the THING inside her.
            “Hey, it’s too late for this shit, Alice!” Alan yelled while she struggled to get her top clothes back from him.  He was fast to throw a leg across her and straddle her waist, to bend down and fondle her breasts.
            “I said no, damn it!” Alice yelled back, punching his chest with her hand.
            “Forget what you want, it’s too late now.  Hey guys, I could use some help in here!” Alan yelled for his three friends.  They were eager to help.  Within moments she was stripped nude and held securely.
            “This is a lot easier since she only has one hand,” Seth commented as Alan began his ride.
            “Yeah, almost like fucking a retard or something,” Bill laughed.

CHAPTER EIGHT:

THE  PRIEST

            It was a wait of a few hours since the time when Alice killed the boys early in the evening.  This gave her time to take the cocktail of gin and pills, to listen to her favorite rock music in the darkness of her bedroom.  Cool had not visited long.  With her new powers she realized she could order him to come and go, much like a servant.  There was the occasional sound of her hand scurrying about the room as it guarded against the rat boy as he scratched and gnawed around the window sills.
            It was a couple hours past midnight when Alice saw a car pull into Alan’s driveway.  There was the usual casual pace to enter the house as Alan’s parents made their way to the front door as they had done hundreds of times before.  And then?  There was the maddened screams of his mother that can only be made by someone plunged into the scalding hot cauldron of reality and death.  Again and again, Alan’s mother wailed.
            “What do you think of your bad boy now, Momma?” Alice whispered while sipping her gin.  And then there was a giggle as the screams continued, now somewhat lesser in their intensity.
            In less than fifteen minutes there were several police cars arriving at Alan’s house.  Minutes later there were numerous flashlights searching the darkened yard, and those neighboring to even include the woodland where Alice took her walks.  She could hear excited, muffled conversations of policemen.  And then, more police cars continued to arrive to join in the search for clues.  Alice sipped her drink in smug revelry of her new found powers.
            The flashing lights of the police cars and the sirened arrival of more law enforcement eventually lead to the awakening of Alice’s parents.  She realized now that many of the law enforcement vehicles were those of the State Patrol.  In time she knew there would be the ringing of the doorbell and someone would be asking her parents questions.  Until eventually, she too would be asked questions.  She did not have to wait long.
            Alice heard the doorbell ring, and a few moments later there was the frantic pounding on her door by Theresa.
            “Alice!  Alice, wake up!”
            “Yeah, I’m up.  What’s going on?” Alice asked, faking the sleepiness of just waking.
            “There are policemen downstairs who want to ask us some questions, and they want us all together.”
            “What?”
            “Don’t argue, just get your ass moving and follow me.  Put some clothes on,” Theresa ordered.
            The questions were a routine inquiry of ‘What did you see?  What did you hear?’  Alice’s parents were very helpful by stating that they had heard noting.  The policemen then directed their questions to Alice since her parents had no information.
            “Ms. Rex, did you hear anything?” asked a young cop in his late twenties or early thirties with black curly hair.
            “Yes, I heard loud music.  But that’s normal.  Every Friday night they seem to have a party or something, and I can hear loud music.”
            “That’s right, officer,” Theresa confirmed.  “All summer long they’re going at it on Friday nights.
            Why?  What’s this all about?”
            “There were four murders next door… all teen boys.”
            “Oh no!” Theresa gasped in surprise.
            Looking toward Alice the officer asked, “Ms. Rex, were you acquainted with the boy next door, Alan Hubble?”
            “No, I stayed away from him and his friends.  I’ve always heard they were into drugs and stuff.  And really, that’s all I know.  I’ve never even spoken to him.”
            “Okay, we’ll be leaving now, but if you can think of anything that might help, give us a call,” the officer noted, handing Roland a card with his name and phone number on it.
            “This kind of adds up,” Roland offered.  “We were robbed earlier this week.  A burglar got off with Theresa’s jewelry and vandalized the house.”
            “Could be the same people.  Just keep your eyes open and play it safe, okay,” the officer warned.  He then apologize for the disturbance and left.
            Alice felt her encounter with the policeman had gone well.  After all, how suspect could a one handed teenage girl be?  She asked her parents if she could return to her room.  Permission was granted and a few moments later she was again watching the collection of men, cops and private citizens as they scoured through the woods and the properties surrounding Alan’s house, searching for clues.  It would be an all night vigil.  Until finally, one by one, an ambulance removed the bodies, the last at sunrise.  Nearly drunk with gin, Alice again chuckled with her mumbled comments.  “Just like a fucking retard.”