The Tommyknockers Novels & Stories

"Or he's not coming." "He's coming." I scanned the crowd. Looking for a face I'd tried to forget. Two oh-three. He appeared. Tall. Broad shoulders. Tattoos covering both arms in black and gray ink. Sleeve rolled up despite the cold. Tommy. He saw me. Smiled. All teeth. No warmth. "Jackson. Good to see you, mate." "Tommy." His eyes slid to Sloane. Then Peter. Lingered too long on both. "Thought I said come alone."

“Four years of your lame-ass ‘torture’ and you still don’t know me, huh?” I grinned through gritted teeth. Before Matt could move, I grabbed his hand and pulled him off balance. “Come on, Matthew. Give me your best shot.” The next hit knocked me to my knees. I tasted blood, and for a second, everything spun. But I stayed grinning. “Damn, that was a good one. Who’s next?” “You’re sick,” Tommy laughed, though I could hear the nerves in his voice. “Oh, don’t act so concerned.”

“I don’t know, but I’m writing it down. Either they are talking about the fairies or another person. Who can tell right now?” That’s when another device chimed up with Tommy and Knocker. Greta blinked at that. “Who’s Tommy? And what is a knocker? I don’t know that job.” Bill laughed. “Sorry. That’s funny. I guess Tommy Knocker isn’t in the device’s dictionary, so they used the next best thing. A Tommy Knocker is a fairy that lives in caves and mines. It guards the mines and protects the good miners. Don’t ask what they do to claim jumpers. Maybe we have a spirit that’s telling us we’ve got Tommy Knockers in the area.”

The desk clerk was so scared when he saw them, he told them what room number she was in. The teams got into position and drew their weapons. Vic and Tommy were at the door. Tommy knocked on the door so hard that it shook the window next to the door. There was no answer. Tommy looked at Bruce. He knew what Tommy was expecting. He normally kicked a door in on an assignment because he was the only who was strong enough to do it in one kick. Bruce approached the door, trying not to look overly solemn, he lifted his foot and put all the force he could into the kick.

The Reverend’s eyeballs righted into place. Their hearts seemed to flatten with the concussion, stop dead inside their chests for an instant. Air exited lungs. The lights near the red-brick shelters and along the bike path flickered and went out, came on again. Tommy saw an opening and crawled for it, drew himself up and clipped the tomahawk out of Salt’s grasp, hurling it away. He turned in surprise, saw his war ax flip end over end into the blackness as Tommy attached himself to his leg, grappling to pull him down.

Then came the knock. I opened the door to find Andrew. Soaked. Holding take-out and a portable charger like offerings to a goddess he wasn’t sure still prayed. “You followed me,” I said. He shrugged. “Checked the emergency contact list in HR. And your doorman likes me.” I let him in. He set the food on the table, then lit a candle with a practiced flick. “We used to do blackout drills,” he said. “Remember? Middle school science fair.” “You cheated,” I muttered. “Brought a hand-cranked generator.”

He looked pale but surprisingly good for someone who'd been shot less than twenty-four hours ago. "Hi," he said, his gaze moving over our group with obvious confusion. "I'm Tommy." "We know," Troy said, stepping forward with confidence. "I'm Troy, and these are my brothers Lake and Soren. We brought you stuff because Dad said you were hurt and probably bored." Tommy's eyes moved to Xenois with a question in them. "My sons wanted to meet you," Xenois explained. "And apparently decided you needed entertainment." "That's really nice," Tommy said, looking genuinely touched as the boys started unpacking their offerings onto the bedside table. "Thank you guys. I've actually been pretty bored."

Heavens had mercy on me because as soon as I closed my eyes, the bell rang indicating the beginning of class. Although I was used to pain, I was no sucker for it, so I scurried to class as fast as I could. In the process, I fell to the ground after successfully falling for a trap. While kissing the floor, then and there I knew someone had set his leg out for me. “Dick sucker, aren't you satisfied with sucking dicks, but now you want the ground?” I heard someone laugh, and the other students laughed along. I whimpered as I helped myself up. The beatings from my family yesterday was yet to heal. Today being Monday, I knew it was going to be a tough and long day.

I have to go on a business trip for a week, so I get a cat-sitter to come over and feed my cat Muffin while I'm away. But on the second day, when I check the live footage from the living room surveillance camera, I see my fiancee, Kate Swanson's childhood friend Samuel Lambert enter the password for the front door and walk into the house. Then, he throws a grape into Muffin's bowl. Samuel Lambert raises an eyebrow in the direction of the surveillance camera. "Hey, Jonathan. Muffin is a smart one, isn't it? It's not touching the grape at all." Then, as I watch in horror, he unplugs the surveillance camera. I feel my heart sink, and I immediately ask the cat-sitter to head back over and ch

He looked to be around my age, probably a year or two older and I could see the subtle resemblance he shared with Alessio in the line of his jaw and wavy black hair. “Coraline, that’s Tommy, short for Tommaso.” Alessio introduced in a begrudging tone. “He’s one of my younger cousins living here because his parents kicked him out when he insisted on starting a rock band after graduating high school instead of heading off to the university.” Tommy’s dark eyes twinkled playfully. “Hi, Coraline. You can totally be the band’s manager when we make our debut next year.” “Oh.” I blinked. “Um, thanks for the offer.”