EDITOR'S NOTE: Not only are we determined to spotlight fiction as well as cinema here at Fear Zone, but we have a mission to educate the average horror fan that there are many different aspects of the genre in both of those mediums. For instance: Young Adult Horror Fiction. If you haven't sampled what this subgenre has offered the last few years--works by such authors as Lynne Hansen and Edo Van Belkom--then you probably don't realize what a legion of readers have discovered: Young Adult Horror isn't just for young adults. These novels aren't cute and cuddly Steven Spielberg variations on the genre--scary things happen in them and people die horrible deaths. Check out the website for the new Wicked Dead series co-written by Lee Thomas (writing as Thomas Pendleton) and Stefan Petrucha. When you drop by the site, make sure the volume on your speakers is working. Scared yet? Good. To preview Lurker, the first volume in this series, I asked the authors to interview--each other!

At the end of a long field of dead grass otherwise surrounded by forest, the six-story Georgian mansion juts up on the horizon. Huge and vacant, glass gone from most windows, it seems held up by the pregnant clouds swirling in the darkening sky. Its rotted front doors, tall and wide enough for an SUV to pass through, are bracketed by flattened columns. Atop these sits a triangular cornice, letters on its lowest beam still read, "LOCKWOOD ORPHANAGE" - a name that has seemingly outlived its purpose, for now the house appeared as abandoned as its former occupants.

Inside the entrance hall of this crumbling edifice, two men meet beside the staircase. The banister is cold and black with rot. Cobwebs hang thick like lace between the spindles.

Both men are writers. Stefan Petrucha is known for his work on the X-Files comic series, the Nancy Drew graphic novels and his first hardcover, Teen, Inc. is about to hit the bookstores October 1. He bares a striking resemblance to Alan Alda during the M*A*S*H years. The other guy is named Thomas "Lee" Pendleton, who writes mainstream horror under the name Lee Thomas, but goes by his given name for the teen market. He's won the Bram Stoker Award and authored a number of books, including Stained, Damage and The Dust of Wonderland. He looks stylish, yet confused.

Lee: Who are you, and what are you doing here?

Stefan: Geez, Lee, did you bring the pizza?

Lee: Check under the homeless guy's body. No. The other one. The one with the rats on him. Anyway, I remember now. They brought us here to Lockwood to chat about Wicked Dead, our new series that folks are talking about. Would you care to give readers an idea of what that's all about?

Stefan: Scat! Scat! I hate it when they get the tomato sauce all over them like that. Anyway, -munch-munch- Four ghost girls are trapped in abandoned Lockwood Orphanage, unable to remember their lives or their deaths, tormented by the Headmistress, a sadistic, more powerful spirit. Their one hope -munch-munch- is to gather each night and roll a set of mysterious carved bones that act like dice. When a certain combination of the strange runes carved on them comes up, a tale of terror rises that must be told. The girls pray that someday their own tale will be discovered, -munch-munch- allowing them to flee their earthly confinement. You want a piece? Of the homeless guy, I mean... Oh, and maybe talk about that inner terror tale...

Lee: Right, well, each book has a central story, which makes up the bulk of the book. In Lurker , the first in the series, a girl named Mandy must come to grips with the murder of a friend. Also, Mandy has unwittingly drawn the killer's attention. So, soon enough, this freak is stalking her. Nicknamed, The Witchman, because... well, that's what I wanted to call him... the killer is a truly nasty piece of work. In fact, I'm kind of surprised they didn't ask me to tone some of his nastiness down.

Stefan: Yeah, the level of umm... gore? we're able to use surprised me. We've got, what? Eviscerations, lost limbs. bodies floating around. So we're definitely in the upper end of the YA territory in those terms. Really, though, that stuff's decoration for the scares, and what I'm most pleased about are the plots and characters we're able to work with. When we started talking about the series back in NY, we said we wanted to use classic horror, from Poe to Lovecraft to Twilight Zone, as our inspiration, and I think so far we've done that.

Lee: Well, it was all of that talk about Twilight Zone, Night Gallery and those other great old television anthology series. We also talked about more recent shows like X-Files, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. We dug the recurring characters in those, but liked the freedom and variety of an anthology. So, we started throwing around ways those two formats could work together. For the frame tale we needed a cast of interesting characters and a cool setting. An orphanage - deserted, ruined, nasty as we could make it - seemed like a perfect location. Using the ghosts of former wards was a natural extension of the idea. Then we just needed a reason for them to be telling stories. That's where the game you talked about comes in.

Stefan: I remember the car ride where we settled on an Orphanage. We were talking about Japanese Horror films and the great use they made of "child" ghosts, which were always especially creepy. Lockwood (the name of the orphanage in Wicked Dead ) is actually an exit on either the west side highway or 87, the route I took into the city where we met for our writer's crit group. Then we named our four dead girls after famous women in horror -- Mary, Daphne, Anne and Shirley - I'll let readers figure out who's who. I think the game came up because it seemed a good idea to have them in competition, rather than natural (or unnatural) friends. Bones seemed natural for a horror series. Another thing I'm pleased about is that unlike X-Files or Twin Peaks , which made things up as they went along, we actually have a framework in place for where our ghost girls are headed, one that I think is pretty exciting.

Lee: And one that could take the series well into the future without "jumping the shark." The readers of teen fiction - whether they're actually teens or not - tend to be savvy. They know if you're faking it, and that's something we're conscious of with every book, and the series as a whole. We knew from the outset that the "ghost world" and its occupants had to have history and logic and a set of rules. Over the course of the books all of these things are touched on, but the mystery is maintained because of the complexity of that world. It's been a lot of fun so far. Ooops. Pizza's gone and it's getting late. Why don't we wrap up by hearing what other projects you're working on?

Stefan: Well, I'm terribly excited about my aforementioned first hardcover, Teen, Inc. coming out October 1, from Walker Books. It tells the story of Jaiden Beale, the first person ever to be raised entirely by a corporation, and his efforts as a teen to rebel against his parent company. In November, my adaptation of Beowulf appears from HarperCollins in graphic novel form, with drop-dead artwork by Kody Chamberlain. Better than Monarch Notes, and more exciting, too! So, it's a busy autumn for me! Sure you don't want another piece of the homeless guy? Tastes just like chicken.

Lee: Uh... no.

Stefan: What about you? You have a few things coming out.

Lee: True enough. My first mass market hardcover, The Dust of Wonderland (under the Lee Thomas name) came out in August and is doing well, plus I have a couple more projects for the adult market that I can't really talk about just yet. And next summer HarperCollins will release my young adult novel, Mason. So, with all the Wicked Dead books and those, I'm keeping busy. Did you hear that? What was that?

Stefan: Oh crap. He wasn't dead yet.

Lee: See ya!