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Sometimes a man grows tired of carrying everything the world heaps
upon his head. The shoulders sag, the spine bows cruelly,the muscles
tremble with weariness. Hope of relief begins to die. And the man must
decide whether to cast off his load or endure it until his neck snaps like a
brittle twig in autumn.
Such was my situation late in my thirty-third year. Although I deserved
everything the world had heaped on -- and torments after death far worse
than any the world could threaten, the torture of my skeleton, the rape
and dismemberment of my immortal soul -- though I deserved all that
and more, I found that I could no longer bear the weight.
I realized I didn't have to bear it, you see. I came to understand that I
had a choice. It must have been difficult for Christ himself to withstand
the agonies of the cross -- the filth, the thirst, the terrible spikes raping the jellied flesh of his hands -- knowing he had a choice. And I am not Christ, not even by half.
My name is Andrew Compton. Between 1977 and 1988 I killed
twenty-three boys and young men in London. I was seventeen years old
when I began, twenty-eight when they caught me. All the time I was in
prison, I knew that if they ever let me out I would continue killing boys.
But I also knew they would never let me out.
E X Q U I S I T E
C O R P S E
Poppy Z. Brite was born in 1967 and grew up in New Orleans, Louisiana, and North Carolina. She worked as a gourmet candy-maker, mouse caretaker, artist's model, and exotic dancer, before she began writing fiction full time.
Her first stories appeared in the now-defunct THE HORROR SHOW magazine between 1985 and 1990. Her short fiction has since appeared in numerous anthologies, including BORDERLANDS 1 and 3, WOMEN OF DARKNESS 2, BOOK OF THE
DEAD 2: STILL DEAD, THE EARTH STRIKES BACK, DARK DESTINY 2: PROPRIETORS OF FATE, and YEAR'S BEST FANTASY AND HORROR 5.
Her first book, the Southern Gothic vampire novel, LOST SOULS (Delacorte/Dell Abyss), was published in 1990, and her second novel, DRAWING BLOOD (Delacorte/Dell Abyss), in 1993.
Recently, she has edited an anthology of erotic vampire fiction, LOVE IN
VEIN (HarperPrism; with a follow-up, LOVE IN VEIN 2, scheduled for
January 1997 release), published her third novel, EXQUISITE CORPSE
(Simon & Schuster), and completed her biography of Hole frontwoman
Courtney Love-Cobain.
Currently, she lives in New Orleans with her husband, six cats, an albino kingsnake, and a one-eyed dog that she recently found at the post office.
Represented by Richard Curtis Associates, Inc. (New York)
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