Murdered Out

Originally published as an exclusive extra in the UK edition of CARPE CORPUS. Normal life in Morganville. As far as normal ever was, Shane Collins thought; nobody was overtly rioting, getting arrested, or killing anyone. Not on the street, anyway. Not on this street, anyway. One of the hard-to-find exclusive stories written specifically for the UK editions (which at the time were being published a month or two after the US releases, meaning that die-hard fans rushed to buy internationally) … it was offered as an extra to help the UK publisher convince fans there to wait for the local edition, and it seems to have worked! I didn’t give Shane his own car early on in the series for a variety of reasons, but mostly because it was fun for him to have to ask nicely for rides. The fact that he couldn’t quite earn enough to buy his own said something about Shane’s job-related experiences, too. But finally, at this particular point (after Kiss of Death, before Bite Club) Shane is ready to make the commitment. I mostly love this story for the small-town details I got to put into it, and the introduction of Rad, the mechanic. Fun factoid: this story was inspired by me getting the rims on my car (a Smart car, which Shane would never drive, but Claire totally would) painted black. The shop salesperson said, ‘Oh, you mean you’re murdering it out.’ I’d never heard the term before, and loved it.