William D. Carl Author

The following interview is with William D. Carl, author of Desert Heart in The Beast Within.

Hi, William. Could you start us off with a little info about yourself? We here on the forums are so used to seeing text and avatars that it can be easy to forget there are human beings behind the words. What’s a day-in-the-life-of-William Carl like?

A: Rather dull, I’m afraid. I work as a bookstore manager, so I either open or close. In between, I usually work out for a half hour to an hour, read, watch way too many movies, and play with my dog Jake. He can be pretty demanding.

As a writer, what do you find is the most challenging part about crafting fiction, and how do you overcome it?

A: Just sitting down and doing it. With a full time job and all the worries of home, I sometimes have to coerce myself into sitting down at the computer and not browse the internet. Once I start, theres no stopping me. When I have goals or deadlines, it’s so much easier for me.

What initiated your interest in the horror genre?

A: Ever since I was a small child of five, I have loved horror films. I can still remember watching Chiller Theater with Fritz the Night Owl when I was a mere babe. The first time I watched it, there was a double feature of CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON and GODZILLA VS. THE THING. I was hooked. I mean, like heroin. As I grew older, I discovered reading horror fiction can supply even more goose-pimply moments than movies, and I devoured Poe, Lovecraft, Bloch, and King. As I grew older, Peter Straub and Clive Barker became my Gods. I also read a lot outside of the genre…I’m currently in the middle of Waugh’s BRIDESHEAD REVISITED, but I always eventually return to the world of the macabre.

Any personal experiences where you might’ve felt like a character in a horror novel?

A: Not really. My life remains sedate and calm. Placid, even. I get my thrills on the page. If anything ever happens, I’ll let you all know!

Is there a specific aspect of the genre that is particularly appealing to you?

A: I enjoy the roller coaster ride supplied by a good thriller or horror novel…that feeling of putting yourself in a position of terror an d danger without the real danger that could cut your life short. I also think horror is easily one of the most allegorical genres out there. It’s easy to be subversive when the story deals with something paranormal or supernatural. People aren’t looking for it, but it’s usually there someplace.

Writer’s block strikes sooner or later; are there any home remedies or writing exercises you use to stave off the dreaded curse?

A: I’ve been lucky so far. I have more ideas than I could ever get down on paper.

Where can we see more of your work?

A: I have a novel from Permuted Press called BESTIAL: WEREWOLF APOCALYPSE. I also have stories in the forthcoming IN LAYMON’S TERMS from Cemetery Dance and ROBOTS BEYOND from Permuted. I’ve had stories in the (newly in mass market) MANY FACES OF VAN HELSING, SHADOW REALMS, TALES FROM THE GOREZONE, SKIN & INK, CHIMERWORLD 2, AMAZING HEROES 3, OUT OF THE GUTTER issue 2, and various magazines.

When the submission call went out for Beast Within, what was the first idea that came to mind? What made you choose the were-creatures in your story?

A: I was going through a DVD viewing phase of John Ford Westerns, and I thought, ‘What a great setting for a werewolf novel.’ The were-cougar came from the setting.

Could you give us a non-spoiler synopsis of your story Desert Heart?

A: Werewolves and werecougars fighting it out in the Old West. How’s that?

Thanks, William!

And now, here’s an excerpt of Desert Heart from The Beast Within:

DESERT HEART, BY WILLIAM D. CARL

My one and only deputy released me from the confines of the one and only holding cell in the Cactus Torch Jailhouse, a steaming mug of coffee in one hand and my trousers in the other. His name was Mike, and the gangly kid had been with me for three years, so he’d already seen the worst I had to offer. I knew I was a sight, lurching out of the barred room, naked, hair mussed, my feet not working quite right yet, but the boy just shook his head at me and grinned.

“Must’ve been a helluva night, sheriff,” he said.

Taking the coffee in my trembling hands, wrapping it between fingers that felt altogether wrong against the warm cup, I nodded. “Yeah,” I answered, my voice raspy. It felt like my throat was full of sand. I knew from experience this would last another hour or so after dawn. The coffee, black and strong, helped a bit.

Mike turned around and went outside the little jailhouse to smoke a cheroot on the porch and leave me alone with my thoughts. Sad to say there weren’t a lot of them. Just a terrible, throbbing thirst, which I satisfied with another cup of steaming joe, and the curious feel of fiber against my skin as I dressed for the day. Tough, almost-clean jeans, a red flannel shirt, a pair of pungent socks, and heavy boots. Finally, I pinned on the star-shaped badge that denoted my position in Cactus Torch, Nevada. It wasn’t much of a position, barely a footnote in the town charter, but it separated me from the riff-raff that occasionally raised hell in the streets. Pouring a third cup of coffee, I ambled out onto the front porch and took a seat next to Deputy Mike.

“Pretty day,” he mumbled. He always seemed to have trouble getting his mouth around words, like the English language was something slippery between his teeth.
“Yep,” I said.

The sun was rising over the little cluster of buildings that made up our diminutive dot on the US map. The whole town was laid out in a strip along what we liked to call Main Street, mostly by default. There really weren’t any other streets to be named. Across from the jailhouse was the general store, run by Mr. Peterson from New York, and the fat man was sweeping the nightly dust from his stoop. Next door to Peterson’s, at the hotel, a young redheaded woman walked into the sunshine, smiling up at the sky. I hadn’t met her yet, but I’d heard she was the daughter of Johnson Granger, an old-timer who worked the mines in a camp about a mile east of town. A pleasant scent of violets wafted behind her. Separated from the rest of the little wooden buildings was the Last Nickel Saloon, and I could see the whores lounging on the deck over the front porch, fanning themselves, their movements languid after working all night long. That summed up Desert Torch, a saloon complete with requisite three whores, a general store, a hotel, and the jailhouse, complete with sheriff and one eighteen-year-old deputy. Although there were a few attempts at creating homes dotting the landscape just outside the city limits, other than the ranchers, people mostly lived where they worked.

It may not sound like a lot, but the place really got roaring when those miners came to town every Saturday to whoop it up. My single cell would usually be full of drunks and rabble-rousers over the weekends, but nothing really serious happened in our little corner of the desert. People generally got along with each other, disputes were rare, and we all liked it that way.
Mike said, “Looks like a hot one today.”
“It’s the desert, boy,” I muttered. “It’s always a hot one.”

Mike nodded, accepting this fact as he accepted everything life threw at him. His parents had been making for California when a group of hostile Comanches had overtaken their wagon, killed his parents, and burned everything they’d owned. He’d been discovered near the mines, dehydrated and almost dead, a scrawny fifteen-year-old orphan who still couldn’t remember everything that had happened on that dark day. Something in the kid’s eyes appealed to me, told me he’d be a good ally, and I’d needed a friend. Making him a deputy was almost a joke, as he’d probably run if a bad guy said ‘Boo’ to him, but he was a damn good shot with that Remington I’d given him, and he had proved time and again that he could keep a secret.

There were plenty of secrets to keep, too. Things the general populace didn’t need to know. Things I needed to keep close to myself. It was almost 1880, and the world was changing around us. Only, it wasn’t changing fast enough to keep up with peoples’ prejudices, and if they’d known about my debilitation, I’d probably be killed. Star or no star.
The redheaded woman had crossed the street to the general store, and she gave a curt nod to us as she passed, barely discernible beneath her yellow parasol. Mike’s tongue looked like it might fall out of his mouth and roll across the floor. He wasn’t used to a woman all dandified up and clean, one with a spotless blue dress and a cinched waist. He still blushed in front of the whore he visited once a month on payday, and she was twice his age and nearly three times his weight.

“Down, boy,” I said. “That one there’s outta your reach.”
“Sure is pretty to look at, though, ain’t she?”
“Reckon I have to agree with you there. Heard she was related to one of the miners out at Rockland.”
“I heard that, too. But she sure don’t look like old man Granger. Looks like she’s still got all her teeth.”

We passed several minutes without talking, just enjoying the morning dawn as it crept over the town, lighting up the sand in streaks of gold and red. The desert was a beautiful place, even with its dangers. Being only a mile away from the mountains gave the whole scene a kind of beauty I hadn’t seen except in picture postcards. Yes, it was a beautiful little town, full of decent people who enjoyed the quiet days and a few rowdy nights now and again.
Then, within a matter of minutes, it all went straight to hell.

***

Jeb Gordon rode into town on his expensive new gelding, a trail of dust lingering behind him as far as I could see. I didn’t catch sight of him till he was almost upon the jailhouse, my mind preoccupied with the pretty redhead, but his calls snagged my attention like one of his perfectly tossed lassos. Jumping from his horse, he wrapped the reins around a post a few times and stepped towards me. His face was white under the patina of trail-dust, and he smelled of sweat and cattle.

“Sheriff, you gotta come out to the Bar C,” he stammered. “Boss Hilliard said not to leave without you.”
“What’s the rush? Someone get killed?”
“No, well ?” He seemed to reflect on the matter a moment before continuing. Not the smartest ranch hand in the area, but he had been hired a month ago for his deft handling of a rope, not for his brains. “Something’s dead. Something got to the cattle last night. Killed four of ‘em. Least, that’s how many we found so far.”
“Rustlers of some kind?” I asked, putting on my hat and heading for my horse. Mike was at my side.
“More like some kinda animal. All I know is there’s good steer meat all over the damn place.”
Cautiously, I asked, “What kind of animal?”
I could feel Mike watching the back of my head, his intense gaze blazing into the back of my skull.
“I don’t know. Maybe a wolf. But, I ain’t never seen nothing like this before, Sheriff. Them steers is just torn to pieces.”
“You head on back to the Bar C,” I said. “We’ll be out soon as we get the horses ready.”
“Boss Hilliard said I ain’t to come back without you.”
“You won’t be. We’ll be ready in a few minutes, and we’ll meet you by the dead steers. Where are they, exactly?”
“Over in the arroyo by Chief Rock.”
“I know the place. You get your boss and meet us there soon as you can. It’ll save time not starting at the ranch house.”
“If I get in trouble ?” The kid looked wary. “I ain’t had this job very long.”
“I’ll take the responsibility for everything. Just get going. You got farther to go than we do.”
With a loud “Hyah!” he jumped on his horse’s back and pulled the reigns around. Then, he disappeared into the puffs of dust he’d raised on his journey into town, swallowed up by them.
Mr. Peterson leaned out from the doorway of his store and shouted, “Trouble, Sheriff?”
“Nothing you need to worry yourself about,” I hailed back.
Mike said, “Sheriff, I swear I didn’t ?”
“Not here,” I whispered. “We’ll talk on the trail.”
I saddled up Missy, my Appaloosa I’d taken off a dead bandit. Mike was already astride his mare.
I saw the worry in his face, but I could tell by the twitching in my left eye that my own countenance was even more bedeviled.

***

About a half mile out of town, heading towards the mountains at a steady trot, Mike finally broke the uncomfortable silence. My thoughts had turned so far within that I didn’t hear him the first time he asked the question.
“Sheriff,” he repeated.
I snapped out of my uneasy reverie. “Yeah?”
“We far enough away to talk about it yet?”
“I suppose.”
“I swear on my parents you were in that cell all night, locked up safe and sound. There’s no way you could have killed those cattle. I may have dozed a bit, but I woulda’ heard you if you managed to somehow get out.”
“I remember everything, Mike, and, no, I didn’t escape. I recall a lot of pacing, looking at the bars.”
“You didn’t try to touch any of ‘em. Must’ve learned your lesson that last time. That silver inside the bars near knocked you across the room when you touched ‘em. Never seen such a thing.”
“So, if it wasn’t me ?” I said, letting the statement hang in the arid desert air.
“Then, we got us another werewolf in town, and this one’s killing cattle. Maybe it ain’t learned how to lock itself up, yet.”
I nodded. “Sounds about right.”

When I’d been sheriff of another town in Colorado, at least sixteen years ago, I’d been checking the fence rows on a ranch when something huge had yanked me right off my horse and tossed me into a tree line. Stumbling to my feet, I witnessed the sight of a creature with the head of a snarling wolf, but the body of a hirsute giant man in silhouette against the full moon. It had howled, a haunted, wolf-like moan, then sliced into my mare with two-inch-long black claws. It buried its snout into the carcass of my motionless animal, snuffling out the best bits before it turned its bloody visage towards me. Licking bits of horse flesh from its snout, the werewolf stalked me from the other side of the trees. I attempted escape, but the creature was too fast, falling upon my back, forcing me face-first to the ground. I shouted to my deputy, who was somewhere in the vicinity, but the beast stifled my cries, raking long slashes through my shirt and sheepskin coat, tearing its way to the tender flesh. It had just started licking my wounds, nipping at pieces of loose skin, when I heard a gunshot. The creature yelped once, then a growl emerged from its throat, so hearty I could feel it pulse through the open slices on my back. It launched itself at its attacker, and I heard my deputy cry out once, a scream ending with a gurgle.

Then, silence.

The next morning, I was discovered unconscious but still alive and in one piece. My deputy, my savior, wasn’t so lucky. I returned to town to nurse my wounds.
I healed much faster than I expected under the care of my wife Shanna and my little boy Luke. Even old Doc Sears was surprised by the rapidity of my cure. Within two weeks the skin had sealed itself back over the gashes so not even a scar remained. I’d felt as though I’d evaded any real harm.
I couldn’t have been more wrong.
During the next full moon cycle, I changed during the night. It was painful, my bones snapping into more animalistic postures, my skull elongating into a snout, my teeth shoved aside by new, dripping fangs.

Tearing the clothes from my body, I loped off into the night. By the morning, I’d killed three sheep. I awoke naked in a bean field with the coppery taste of blood in my mouth. I felt terrible for the farmers’ losses, but I also recalled the exhilaration brought on by the metamorphosis, the excitement of the hunt, the thrill of tasting living muscle between my fangs. I felt powerful. I felt indestructible.
The next evening, I prepared, knowing there’d be another full moon. I couldn’t wait for the arousal the night would bring, but I wanted to be far enough from my home so as not to harm Shanna or Luke. I’d changed again, and it had still been painful, but the knowledge that I’d be hunting again soon made it more bearable.

That night, I killed the seven-year-old son of a local farmer when he’d entered the henhouse where I’d been feasting on the elusive, flapping birds.
Suddenly, the excitement came with a price, and I wasn’t ready to pay that toll ever again. The third and final full moon, I locked myself in the cell at my jailhouse. I’d thrown myself at the bars to such an extent that I awoke the next morning with bruises all down my torso and two broken ribs.
Unable to face the family of the boy I killed or my own suddenly vulnerable kin, I left town and headed further west. I made my way to the Great Basin Desert, and I exchanged the forests of Colorado for the dry aridness of the desert. I filled my empty heart with sand.

Eventually, I discovered Cactus Torch. It needed a sheriff. I’d needed a place to call home, a place to hide from my past, a place to forget what I’d left behind me. We seemed to be made for each other.
After I brought on Mike as my deputy, I finally had someone to watch over me on the nights when the full moon showed its pale face, someone I could trust. He helped me insert silver cores into the iron bars of the cell, so I wouldn’t harm myself again, and it seemed to work. When I was in my bestial form, I rarely went near silver.
And I never killed another soul.
Mike brought me back to the present, saying, “You believe this is the critter that clawed you all them years ago? The one that turned you?”
I shrugged. “Can’t say till I meet up with him. He had an odd smell, like rotten meat.”
“And if you kill the bastard? You still think that’ll take the curse offa’ you?”
“It’s what I’ve always read. You kill the creature that made you, and your nights as a wolf fade into memory. I read that in a book once.”

Mike pointed ahead. I hadn’t realized we’d ridden so far.
“There’s the arroyo and Chief Rock.”
The latter was a huge stone balanced precariously atop another, its shape vaguely defining the side-view of an Indian Chief in full headdress regalia. I was always amazed when I saw it that no one had reached out and knocked it over.
Beneath the rock, the corpses of four huge longhorns lay in soggy patches of crimson.
And I knew, almost immediately, that this wasn’t the work of a werewolf.

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