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"One Night in Rosecroft" was an offshoot of a horror novel I'd been working on with another writer. This story became one possible prequel to the events of the book, which has never seen the light of day, and probably never will. I still dig the characters in the book, as well as the goofballs in this story.
"One Night in Rosecroft" first appeared in the small-press anthology The Witching Hour, which was published by Silver Lake Publishing in September 2000.
| One Night in Rosecroft After hearing stories about it from his drinking buddies for the past five years, Grant Krantzmeier decided that tonight would be the night he finally joined up. “Everyone's in it,” his old buddy Tony Anthony had said the previous afternoon, already four beers ahead of Grant and not even showing it, despite being a hair over five feet tall. “Unless you have some sort of problem.” “Uh-huh,” Tony's twin brother Matt agreed, holding his bottle of beer up to the light in a meaty hand as if to check it for clarity. Born seconds apart, Tony and Matt looked nothing alike. Tony had gotten most of the gray matter during his time in their mother's belly, while Matt had gotten all of the healthy genes, shooting him a foot taller and a hundred pounds heavier than his twin. “Uh-huh,” Matt added. “Then how come I never heard about joining up until now?” Grant said. “They're selective,” Tony sniffed. “They gotta check you out.” “Bullshit. There's only fifteen hunnert people that live here in Bancroft. Everyone knows me. I been here all my God damn life.” Matt hunched his big shoulders and leaned next to Tony. He whispered something in little Tony's ear, and Grant saw the lightbulb go on in Tony's brain. “Cause you've been gone so much driving your truck,” Tony said, nodding vigorously. “You ain't been around consistent like the rest of us. They had to be sure about you. And now they're sure about you, so I'm asking you if you're interested.” Grant had stared long and hard and his two old buddies, men the same age as him, his best friends since kindergarten, now in their early thirties. He tipped his brown bottle back and let the beer fall out into his mouth until the bottle was empty. He swallowed. “God damn,” he belched. “When's the next meeting?”
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What the critics said about "One Night in Rosecroft":
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