This article was originally written for FIRST THINGS. It got rejected this week. Frankly speaking, I get so many rejections that they all bleed together. However, I kind of like this one.

In the Anglophone world, there has always been a peculiar overlap between Catholicism and crime fiction. The two great inventors of the American style of mystery fiction—the hard-boiled detective story and the roman noir (the literary precursor to film noir)—Dashiell Hammett and James M. Cain, were both baptized and raised in the faith before ultimately rejecting it as adults. Hammett became a Pinkerton then a Marxist, dedicating himself to full-time activism in the 1930s, and ultimately earning himself a conviction for violating the Smith Act. Cain, on the other hand, adhered to strict atheism, labelling his family’s creed as “mumbo-jumbo.”

Across the pond, where the “cozy” style of mystery writing predominated, Catholic converts like Ronald Knox and G.K. Chesterton penned novels and short stories of a less violent, more cerebral variety than their American cousins. Chesterton famously even made a priest, the veritable Father Brown, as his own Sherlock Holmes.

The heyday of crime and detective fiction, roughly the twenty-year stretch between the two world wars, had a lot of turncoats, I.e., British authors like James Hadley Chase who wrote tough, bloody thrillers, and Americans such as John Dickson Carr who became popular for their elaborate, puzzle-like locked room mysteries set amidst the bucolic splendor of rural England. Enter Anthony Boucher. Born on August 21, 1911, Boucher came kicking and screaming into the world as William Anthony Parker White. He was born, reared, and would ultimately die in Oakland, California on April 29, 1968. Between those years, Boucher made himself into the doyen and dean of speculative letters, as everything from an editor to an anthologist and book reviewer. From the latter perch, where Boucher reviewed mystery, science fiction, and horror novels for the San Francisco Chronicle, New York Times, and Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, he proposed a Code of Ethics for reviewers of mystery novels that put the reader—their enjoyment and interest—front and center:

I shall try to remember that while the critic writes for The Ages, the first duty of the reviewer is to help the prospective reader to decide whether or not he’ll enjoy the book in question.

Among the extremely diverse books lumped together as “mysteries,” I shall try to judge each fairly according to the best standards of the type which the author intended to produce, and not those of another type which I personally prefer.

I shall never interfere with the reader’s suspense and enjoyment by revealing the solution, or any other element which the author deliberately and for good reasons withholds from the reader for a major part of the book.

Boucher’s strong suit was mystery fiction, of this there is no doubt, but in his capacity as a reviewer, editor, and anthologist, he championed the work of authors such as Robert Bloch, the author of Psycho who toiled for years in the weird horror and science fiction pulps before breaking into the mainstream; Shirley Jackson, the tortured genius behind “The Lottery” and The Haunting of Hill House; Charles Beaumont, the doomed short story specialist who penned some of the best scripts for The Twilight Zone; and Philip K. Dick, author of the novel that would later become Blade Runner.

Boucher’s connections to speculative fiction ran deep in other directions as well. Indeed, Boucher is considered one of the godfathers of science fiction. Boucher’s first professional story, 1941’s “Snulbug,” was purchased by Unknown magazine, one of the trailblazing publications of sci-fi’s Golden Age. From then until 1955, Boucher’s literary output was almost exclusively science fiction and fantasy. In 1949, he and author J. Francis McComas founded The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and following McComas’s early departure in 1954, Boucher edited the magazine alone for four years. F&SF is still going strong today, and its sterling reputation is the result of Boucher’s gentle, guiding hand—the same hand that first serialized A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr.’s post-apocalyptic sci-fi novel about a small group of Catholic monks in the American Southwest who preserve the remaining remnants of humanity’s theological, cultural, and scientific knowledge in preparation for the civilization to come. A Canticle for Leibowitz earned a much-coveted Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1961, thus adding, however partially, to Boucher’s two Hugo Awards for Best Professional Magazine (F&SF) in 1957 and 1958.

Boucher’s editorial and critical work are rightfully remembered and praised. The annual Bouchercon World Mystery Convention, which started two years after Boucher’s death in 1970, celebrates the best in mystery, suspense, and crime fiction every year, just as Boucher once did with his many newspaper and journal bylines. Bouchercon serves as a reminder not only of their namesake’s contribution to mystery fiction, but also to the fact that critics, book reviewers, and those who work behind the scenes play a vital role in the production and dissemination of culture.

However, Boucher did more than review mystery novels; he wrote them too. Three of them—1940’s The Case of the Baker Street Irregulars, 1940’s Nine Times Nine, and 1942’s Rocket to the Morgue—are considered classics of the locked room style of mystery fiction (a style wherein someone dies in a locked or otherwise sealed room). Nine Times Nine earned the distinction as being ranked as the ninth-best locked room mystery of all time by other mystery writers in 1981. Nine Times Nine and Rocket to the Morgue are also the only two entries in Boucher’s Sister Ursula series, where the devout Sister Ursula, a nun with the fictitious Order of Martha of Bethany, uses her insights into the human soul to help solve two seemingly impossible crimes.

Nine Times Nine is set in the milieu of alternative religions and their critics in prewar Los Angeles. A yellow-robed charlatan who calls himself Ahasver leads the Children of Light, a cult that believes that the Bible is a lie, and that only the esoteric Gospel of Joseph of Arimathea is true. Ahasver, who claims to the be the Wandering Jew of ancient Christian folklore, tells his multi-ethnic congregation that he found the fabled Gospel of Joseph of Arimathea in a Tibetan monastery. The Children of Light believe that Jesus was not crucified until the Friday following Passover, thus rendering the traditional celebration of Easter Sunday null and void.

Ahasver’s chief nemesis in Los Angeles is Wolfe Harrigan, a celebrated writer who made his fortune debunking mysticism and the claims of international cults. When Matt Duncan, Harrigan’s personal secretary, sees a strange figure in a yellow robe in the writer’s study just before he is found dead, the supposition is that Ahasver is involved in the murder. After all, the faux holy man has already cursed Harrigan with the threat of the “nine times nine.” Sister Ursula is not so sure and working alongside LAPD Lieutenant Terrence “Terry” Marshall, she helps to prove that the death of Wolfe Harrigan was something other than an occult sacrifice.

Rocket to the Morgue picks up not long after the events of Nine Times Nine. Here the milieu is the world of science fiction writing and its fandom. Hilary Foulkes, the son of the dead sci-fi author Fowler Foulkes, creator of the popular Dr. Derringer character, is not well liked by other authors in the Los Angeles scene. His possessiveness of his father’s legacy, plus his predilection for bankrupting science fiction authors, means that Terry Marshall is not surprised when he is assigned to the Hilary Foulkes case. You see, Hilary and his estranged wife are convinced that someone is trying to kill him. There’s plenty of proof too, including not just harassing phone calls, but also a ticking parcel that was mailed to the Foulkes residence. All of this occurs against the backdrop of another crime that occurs down in the gutter of L.A.’s Skid Row. Here, a drifter with a room at a fleabag hotel is found dead clutching a most peculiar kind of rosary. Once again, all these events coalesce into a singular narrative—a narrative that includes a spectacular explosion of an experimental rocket witnessed by science fiction writers who are thinly-veiled caricatures of legends like Robert A. Heinlein, Jack Parsons, and Jack Williamson among others.

As with Nine Times Nine, the appeal of Rocket to the Morgue is twofold: its complex, engaging mystery and the homey, quaint atmosphere that pours forth from every page. Boucher, despite frequently using the name of a vicious American serial killer for a pseudonym, was a master at an American version of the cozy mystery. And, with a nod to Chesterton’s Father Brown series, Boucher’s two great locked room mystery novels are thoroughly Catholic in outlook, ambience, and belief. Nine Times Nine takes place during Lent, and almost every single character in the novel is a serious Catholic, even including Wolfe Harrigan, who publicly claims that his debunking is tied to his support for Roman orthodoxy. Then there’s Sister Ursula herself. Not only is she depicted as a brilliant investigator, whose intelligence and insights come courtesy of her voracious reading of popular fiction and the Bible, but even the earthy Terry Marshall has connections to the church via his wife, the devout Leona, whom Terry meets first in Nine Times Nine. In these novels, someone is always praying, fasting, or fretting about whether they can receive communion that Sunday.

This Catholicism, along with the presence of happily married families with children, separates Boucher from his American contemporaries, who predominately wrote dark, fatalistic crime stories about amoral crooks, femme fatales, and crooked cops. Boucher’s literary universe is moral, and his detective fiction follows the rules of decorum and fair play. Boucher managed to do all of this without slipping into naked Anglophilia. Sister Ursula, Terry Marshall, and Leona still live and work in pre-World War II L.A., they listen to the radio and read the newspapers. When they speak to each other, they speak in the rapid-fire dialect of the United States. As such, Boucher’s Sister Ursula novels, along with his other detective fiction outings, are the perfect reading material for those who want a warm and friendly murder story without it being either overly saccharine or enmeshed in a far-off world of landed nobles and country estates. Plus, a Boucher mystery may teach you a thing or two about faith.

Long-time supporter White Pill Media has released a solid review of our latest book, The Sad, Violent Life of Sandy Preston. Please listen, love (or hate), and buy book here. It’s only seven dollars, for Pete’s sake.

As for what the future of 1325 holds, we can proudly announce that our next book will be T.J. Martinell’s The Legend of Forenia: The Sorcerer’s Bane. A follow-up to Mr. Martinell’s The Legend of Forenia: The Twilight Kingdom (originally published by Terror House in 2021), The Legend of Forenia: The Sorcerer’s Bane promises to be an instant classic for all lovers of high fantasy, sword & sorcery, and action-adventure.

Stay tuned!

This story originally appeared on Crystal Lake Publishing’s Patreon page as part of a Halloween flash fiction contest. Ultimately, this story failed to place in the top five.

After many years of scraping egg yolk off his windows, and after many years of finding toilet paper still hidden in the far branches of his elm tree, Roger Blaine had had enough.

This Halloween, he promised himself, I shall get even.

He prepped and plotted from Christmas until October 30th. Mr. Blaine was a man with time on his hands—his wife and children were both long gone (for different reasons) and he was comfortably retired from the post office—and a deep grudge in his heart. For the better part of two decades, trick-or-treaters had terrorized and harassed him because of his address and opinions on Halloween.

You see, Roger Blaine lived at 666 Elm Street, and children found this morbid combination irresistible. For them, especially the ones far too old to be cavorting around in masks begging for free sweets, the 666 house needed to be the best, most elaborate, and most ghoulish house each Hallowtide. How could it not be? 666 Elm Street was a gift from the devil to his hungry demons, and the fact that grumpy, old Mr. Blaine refused to even put out a single bowl of candy aggravated trick-or-treaters to no end. Even their parents and chaperones bemoaned Mr. Blaine’s resistance to holiday cheer.

“C’mon, at least buy a Freddy Krueger doll or something. It’d be neat to see him sitting on the porch,” they’d tell him in the grocery store.

“Ghost decals are cheap. Hell, at the very least you can put a sign up saying that you don’t celebrate Halloween or something,” they’d occasionally suggest. Always smiling, of course, but Mr. Blaine found it oh so easy to detect malice underneath.

“No,” he would always tell these simple-minded people. “Halloween is a silly holiday, and I will never, ever participate in it. I don’t care how many times your urchins desecrate my family home, but I will never give in.”

That had been his policy until last Halloween when a brood of teenagers, all of them half-naked and covered in fake blood, decided to put the fear of God into his precious Pekingese, Ms. Mirabell. Mr. Blaine had made the poor decision to let Ms. Mirabell “go tinkle” not long after the sun had set on Halloween night, and he had paid for this decision dearly. The wild brood had been watching his house for an hour, and the moment Mr. Blaine let Ms. Mirabell trot off to her favorite bush, the teens had pounced. One grabbed Ms. Mirabell by the scruff while the others screamed and made twisted faces mere inches away from the Pekingese’s twitching snout. The ordeal lasted less than a full minute, and the group scattered the moment Mr. Blaine had uttered the word “gun,” but for Ms. Mirabell, the trauma proved permanent. A full year later, Ms. Mirabell still refused to tinkle outside and jumped at the slightest loud noise.

Mr. Blaine watched his dog suffer and grew crueler as a result. Next Halloween, he promised himself, everyone will pay.

When the colorful leaves fell and when the neighborhood turned a mixture of black and orange, Mr. Blaine’s revenge plan was initiated.

The first trick-or-treaters to ring his doorbell were very young children. He gave them grace and let them go away unharmed. Without candy, but unharmed. They grumbled but walked away in an orderly manner towards the neighboring house.

The next group to darken his doorstep was similarly prepubescent. They also had a rather large chaperone with them that Mr. Blaine recognized as one of the town’s few police officers. This group was left alone.

Then, well after sunset, a larger and older circle of miscreants came and knocked on the house’s door. Blaine watched them through an upstairs window. They numbered six in total, and judging by the racy and vulgar nature of their costumes, they were older, likely high school freshmen.

“Finally, my targets,” Mr. Blaine whispered to himself. He slunk downstairs and made his preparations. Outside on the porch, the teens hooted and hollered and made furious drumbeats on his front door.

“We know you’re inside, Mr. Blaine,” called one in a mocking, sing-song tone.

“Yeah, Mr. Blaine. Let us see your dog,” mocked another, this one female. “I hear your dog doesn’t like Halloween. Is that true?”

A wave of laughter cascaded through the group. One rather timid voice (maybe he had been forced to come along?) let out a half-hearted demand for candy. This was echoed by the rest of the group, who kept up the chant until some other party strolling between the houses told them to shut up. This drew the group’s ire away from the 666 house, and they turned and made ready to harass their new target.

Just then, with their heads facing Elm Street, Mr. Blaine threw open his door and declared to every eyewitness, “Is this the Halloween spirit that you want?”

Mr. Blaine filled the doorway with his body. He took a rubber blade from behind his back that looked real. He put the blade to his throat and made a fast incision. His real throat was buried under a thick padding of pale-colored latex. And when Mr. Blaine cut open his faux throat, the small bladder of colored corn syrup was pierced, causing a wave of fake blood to pour out and discolor Mr. Blaine’s polo shirt.

The reaction was immediate. Everyone, from the six awful teens to other holidaymakers on Elm Street, made various faces of disgust and horror. Most took off running; one or two pulled out their cellphones and recorded the whole thing. Mr. Blaine could hear their active commentary, and he collapsed back behind his front door.

Mr. Blaine’s performance horrified and shocked everyone. This was the goal. However, his performance also had the added bonus of informing Mr. Blaine about the true nature of his standing within the community. No one—not even the amateur videographers—informed the police about the public “suicide.” Mr. Blaine’s neighbors and Halloween nemeses cared enough to make the annual holiday miserable, but not enough to save his life.

Ultimately, he did not care. “To hell with them all,” Blaine bellowed once he was finished cleaning himself up. “I never liked them anyway.” Mr. Blaine celebrated his small victory by turning all the lights off in his house and going to bed early. His performance had been emotionally and physically exhausting, plus it had guaranteed that no more trick-or-treaters would bother him that night.

So, with a grin, Mr. Blaine went to bed to the sounds of a silent Elm Street. His dreams were so sweet and pleasant.

At midnight, an unexpected noise interrupted Mr. Blaine’s slumber. It was the sound of his doorbell.

“What the devil?” Mr. Blaine’s first instinct was to pry open his blinds and look down at the front porch. He saw nothing—no police officers or trick-or-treaters. All he saw was an empty porch illuminated by a single yellow light.

The doorbell rang again.

Mr. Blaine cursed loudly but put on his slippers and trundled downstairs. He wrapped his embroidered bathrobe around his shoulders and threw open the door.

“What do you want?” he screamed. There was no one there to answer his question. The front porch was devoid of any living things.

Mr. Blaine harrumphed and shut the door. He figured it was a last-ditch prank and decided to ignore it. So, when the doorbell echoed throughout his house a second time, Mr. Blaine did not bother opening the door. He yelled out a window for the nuisance to go away.

Then the doorbell rang for a third time. Then a fourth. Then a fifth.

An incensed Mr. Blaine finally answered the door after the sixth ring.

“Stop this right now, or I will call the police! I mean it!”

Rather than an empty porch on an empty street, Mr. Blaine found a dark figure standing before him. The figure was massive, no shorter than seven feet in height. Its blackness was darker than the night surrounding it. Mr. Blaine looked up and saw that the figure wore a large hood that obscured its face.

“Halloween is over,” the homeowner said through gritted teeth.

“That was an unfair trick.” The voice that emanated from the figure was tortured and overly sibilant. It reminded Mr. Blaine of a serpent.

“Halloween is over,” he repeated.

“That was an unfair trick.”

“Well, it’s trick-or-treat, friend. All tricks are unfair.” It was a weak defense, and it sounded weaker because of the obvious fear in Mr. Blaine’s voice.

“It was an unfair trick,” the figure said for a third time. “And I am not to be mocked.”

The figure punctuated its sentence by slowly removing its hood. A milk-white skull glistened underneath the porch light. It was not fake, but real. A real skull, and then a real scythe that martialized out of the air.

Mr. Blaine recognized his midnight caller and screamed loud enough to wake the dead.

I generally try to be a positive guy. I like to look on the bright side, or, barring that, bite down on my mouthpiece and do the dirty, but necessary work of civilization. That being said, I do have two very “blackpilled” opinions.

One: If you are a hard worker, and I mean the hardest working dude at your jobsite or office, then your guaranteed reward for this is…more work. I have seen it and been on the receiving end many times. Diligence in the modern workplace means that you are a mule targeted for exhaustion. Since most of your co-workers are burnouts, “quiet quitters,” or generally incompetent, your superiors will tap you or anyone with an above-basement IQ for every task until you either rage quit or give up the ghost and accept that you’ll die of a pulmonary embolism at 50.

Two: One good decision rarely multiplies, but one bad decision can compound until your life is absolutely ruined. And since almost nobody is a true Boy Scout, I would argue that a nontrivial amount of the population is stuck where they are because of one bad decision that spread like an oil spill, drowning them in an inky-black sea of struggle. Sam Schuler’s life is kind of like that—he is the innocent man who happens to be at the wrong place at the wrong time, and everything following goes to absolute shit.

Originally published by Gutter Books back in 2013, Matthew Louis’s The Wrong Man (Vigilante Crime & Pulp, 2025) is the sordid story of Sam Schuler’s descent from an aspiring husband and everyman to a vicious killer. The novel, which is as short and sharp as any jab or cross to the nose, begins at a party.

There’s a thrash metal band playing at someone’s house. It is one of those cool, breezy California nights, and the crowd is a mix of tough-looking Mexicans and rough-looking white kids. It is not Sam’s scene, or at least not anymore. Sam was a hessian once, but no longer. He has a job selling cigarettes and booze at Vanguard Liquors, plus he’s a student at Morse Junior College. And on top of all of that, he’s got a baby on the way. Sam may not yet be thirty, but he has the responsibilities of a full-grown man.

Unfortunately for Sam, Rich Channing still has his training wheels on. A stoner and thief, Rich decides to boost a brick of the sticky-icky from the party. Rich takes said stolen herb into Sam’s car and offers to give him a piece of the action. Sam freaks out and gets Rich to throw the loot out of the window just before their car is pulled over by the po-po. Whew! Crisis averted. Sam goes home thinking that the weed saga has been put to rest.

Not so fast, says Owen Ferguson. Despite the Gaelic surname, Owen is a local hoodlum who runs a small gang of Mexican kids in Blackmer. Their HQ is the Mexican restaurant next to Vanguard Liquors, so it’s no journey for Owen to walk up to Sam while he’s on his shift. Owen tells Sam that there’s a problem: he and Rich stole Owen’s weed, and that kind of insult requires vengeance. Rich has already been beaten up. It’s now Sam’s turn. Thus, the narrative of The Wrong Man is set in motion.

Louis writes with the speed of an adrenaline junkie. There isn’t a wasted moment or even an extraneous punctuation in this noir roller-coaster. Everything flows in a linear, gory line. The careless confiscation of Owen’s weed leads to several fistfights, shootouts, and multiple grisly executions. Sam is at the center of this madness. At first, he is the hapless victim—a good kid caught in a maelstrom who gets others to do dirty deeds on his behalf. Then, near the novel’s endpoint, something profound happens. Sam stops being the wrong man done dirty by circumstances and becomes a cold-hearted killer. The immediate cause of this shift is the rape of Sam’s pregnant girlfriend. At first, Sam suspects Owen and his goons. Then, after a gruesome series of murders in the last stretch of wilderness in Southern California, Sam comes to realize that someone else—someone once considered a friend—was responsible for violating the sanctity of his home.

The characters are the strength of The Wrong Man. Besides Sam, who is a convincing everyman, there is Sam’s cousin Tommy, a brutalized ex-con who is proficient in the arts of lovemaking and theft. Coozehound Tommy has no problem helping Sam to get the better of Owen Ferguson, but Tommy is the kind of hood guilty of always going too far all the time. On the other end of the spectrum is Sam’s grandfather—a grizzled Korean War vet who returned stateside to drive a diesel rig for thirty years. He’s the kind of fellow who rocks a mean pair of sideburns well past the time they stopped being hip, and he’s the kind of cool cat who never cottoned onto civil rights, women’s lib, or automatic transmissions. Described as a “middle-American redneck,” Sam’s grandfather spends his last days arguing about libtards with other insomniac Republicans and doing his best to get Sam extricated from his mess of a situation. The old man pulls through just before he kicks the proverbial bucket.

Much like Everything on Black, The Wrong Man is a streetwise noir about regular people, not detective fiction archetypes. Although its towns (Blackmer, Del Mar) are fictional, the novel exudes a kind of rottenness—a toxicity increased by sun exposure—that can only be found in the multi-ethnic stew of the very real Southern California. Here people, both Mexican and Anglo, are all fringe types—addicts, gangsters, and general lowlifes who somehow feel out-of-place in the Golden State despite being in the majority. Desperation has been normalized into almost nonexistence for these people, and the horror of Louis’s book comes when the well-adjusted Sam has to become just like the filth to escape the deluge.

The Wrong Man is a kind of Hitchcockian thriller if Jim Thompson had written it during an odd splatterpunk phase. It is a taut, hyper-aggressive novel that can be consumed in a single day, probably a Sunday, bloody Sunday.

The “noir” in film noir literally means “black,” but that is not the point. The point of the black, of the darkness, is that the story being told is one where few flowers bloom and little sun shines. If you’ve ever stayed up too late and caught something like Out of the Past or The Big Heat on TCM’s Noir Alley, then you already know. Film noir is the genre that experienced its heyday after World War II and before the dawn of the 1960s. It became the quintessential American genre, with gun molls, femme fatales, and detectives and gunmen in fedoras doing society’s dirty work on the mean streets of Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, and all points in between.

Sure, most people know about film noir. Some are even hip on neo-noir. However, outside of hardcore bookworms, a shockingly low percentage of the American public is aware that film noir began in the pulps and the paperbacks. It was a literary genre before it made its way to Hollywood. The first—the OGs, as it were—got their start in Black Mask magazine. They had names like Carroll John Daly, Paul Cain, and Dashiell Hammett, and they created the hard-boiled detective story. Then came James M. Cain, whose short, sharp novels The Postman Always Rings Twice and Double Indemnity became movie classics while simultaneously inspiring what would become French Existentialism. Raymond Chandler, the greatest prose stylist of the whole bunch, came a little later in the 1930s, debuting first in Dime Detective Magazine before graduating to the Philip Marlowe novels like The Big Sleep.

Concurrent with the Black Mask boys, and often working alongside them in the same magazines, were the men who created the American noir novel [1]. Writers like Cornell Woolrich, Steve Fisher, and Jim Thompson ditched the detectives and told stories from the perspective of crooks, criminals, innocent men framed for murders, and other stumblebums living on society’s fringes. Then came the paperback originals of the 1950s and 1960s. Here, greats like Fredric Brown, Charles Willeford, and Dan J. Marlowe upped the violence and insanity in potboilers about skirt-chasing deviants, serial killers, and psychopathic bank robbers who sneeze at the thought of good decisions. This, my friends, is all-American noir: quasi-horror novels about liminal types trying to find the bottom of the depths of depravity.

F.T. Grant’s Everything on Black fits firmly within the literary noir tradition. Published this year by our good friends at Vigilante Crime & Pulp, Everything on Black features a cop as its lead (a sheriff’s deputy, to be precise), but this is no detective novel. Instead, Grant’s taut and tawdry romp through the trailer park sees a female deputy go from one horrendous decision to another, ultimately leading her to murder multiple times over.

The novel opens with Deputy Kat Burgess responding to a domestic violence call at the home of Will Cousins, a handsome thirtysomething who plays in a local rock band. The setting is Patterson County, Illinois, a fictional, mostly suburban county somewhere on the edges of Chicagoland. It’s the kind of place where the biggest dream is either moving to the city or making enough money to own a McMansion in some tony neighborhood with gates and cameras. Wilson Roderick Cousins lives in such a McMansion thanks to the wealth of his wife, Dianna Bartello. However, despite being a lazy musician with no job skills or ambition, Will is not happy being married to a mogul in the cement business worth eight million dollars. He’s downright miserable. Not only does Dianna hit him (hence his first meeting with Deputy Burgess), but she is also a drug addict with a fixation on Oxycodone and injectable vitamins. Her being the daughter of a Mafia-connected family is also something Will worries about.

It does not take Will long to worm his way into Kat’s heart. After a few chance meetings at a gym called FitZone, which in turn become coffee and dinner dates, Will and Kat become an illicit item who do the sideways tango after killing bottles of wine [2]. Will breaks the ice after one of these bedroom sessions by suggesting something incredible: Why don’t we kill my wife?

Ahh, it is the gold standard noir plotline first used by Cain in The Postman Always Rings Twice and Double Indemnity, and Everything on Black does not update it all that much. Well, besides making the patsy the woman this time around and the femme fatale a man mentally stuck in high school.

Will says that he has a foolproof plan. While his band, Blood Meridian, is away at a bar gig in the big city, Kat will sneak into his house and plug his sleeping wife with a hotshot of narcotics. Dianna is already a junkie, he figures; her death will look like a run-of-the-mill overdose.

You may be asking yourself: Why is a Patterson County deputy considering a murder plot? What would possess a sworn peace officer to kill the wife of her fling?

Well, Kat Burgess is not totally kosher. Despite being the daughter of a local law enforcement legend and the sister of an Indiana patrolman with a wife and a large family, Kat is a little bit of a fuck up. Not all of it is her fault. Her husband, an Iraq War veteran and former deputy, shot himself, leaving his young wife a widow. However, the biggest problem in Kat’s life was created by Kat herself. She is addicted to online gambling. So addicted that her bank account is fully in the red, and in order to recoup her constant losses, Kat sells information and other under-the-table items to a shady lawyer with ties to a local crime syndicate. Kat is no angel, yet not long after Will ropes her into his murder plot, she begins having some second thoughts. A lot of Will’s backstory doesn’t make sense, and there’s also this nagging YouTube comment accusing Will and his mother of being grifters.

Lust does funny things, however. Envy does even funnier things. Kat experiences both emotions as she breaks into Dianna’s bedroom and finds that the woman is nothing like Will said. Dianna is not older than him, is only worth about two million dollars, and is not a drug addict. Dianna also proves to be the victim rather than the abuser in the relationship, and she tells Kat that she intends to leave Will soon.

This should be the end of the novel, right? Kat, realizing that she has been hoodwinked by her boytoy, goes home and confesses to her peers. That would be the good ending.

But this is noir, and there’s never a good ending. Kat becomes overwhelmed by Dianna’s beauty, her buxom chest, and just how put together she is. She grows to hate her target, so she tells the woman to roll onto her stomach so that Kat can jab the needle in. Once this is done, the real action of Everything on Black begins.

Grant’s novel is a masterclass in psychology [3]. Kat is a tortured individual with multiple complexes. For starters, besides being a gambling addict, Kat is addicted to worshipping her dying father. She is also a bad Catholic who finds the Church again after committing her first mortal sins. The further down the line Kat goes, the more she starts seeing priests and confessional booths everywhere, from convenience stores to the back of a police cruiser.

The one good thing about Kat is she is determined. She’s got a bit of bulldog in her, and after carrying out Dianna’s murder, Kat transitions to becoming a hunter after Will. She discovers that Will is an even bigger bastard than previously imagined. Not only is he a dedicated malingerer, but he is also a suspect in the disappearance of one former girlfriend and the death of another. Then, of course, there’s his mother Elaine. More than both Kat and Will, Elaine is the most interesting character in Everything on Black. She is a trailer park whore and clairvoyant who believes fully in the truth of Tarot cards. She is also a serious fan of The Simpsons and of her own son, the latter of whom may have been her lover at some point (ew!). Most important of all, Kat learns straight from the witch’s mouth that Elaine is the brains behind Will’s many maneuvers.

Everything on Black packs a wallop in less than two hundred pages. This obsidian noir reeks of desperation—Kat’s desperation to get the better of Will and get away from God’s wrath; Will’s desperation to avoid work at all costs; Elaine’s desperation to make others believe in the supernatural. Grant writes with serious speed. I polished this book off in one day. There are no wasted motions or unnecessary discursions here, and even though an argument could be made that Kat’s religious hallucinations come a little out of left field and help to put a nice bow on the ending, they make sense given the high tension of her situation. Also, and this is a praiseworthy decision, so much of the truly abhorrent behavior in this novel is hinted at or suggested rather than confirmed outright (Will may or may not be a serial killer, for example).

Everything on Black is the beating dark heart of the desolate Midwest, and every soul in this moving thunderstorm can stand shoulder to shoulder with the great characters of the aforementioned masters from Black Mask and Gold Medal. Grant and the boyos at Vigilante have brought back an old chestnut, injected it with a new, snarling attitude, and dropped it into our contemporary landscape, which is certainly bleaker and lonelier than any sidewalk stepped on by Spade or Marlowe.

[1] To keep things brief, I will mention here as a footnote that Georges Simenon and his roman durs often get left out of this story. This is a shame, for Simenon’s non-Maigret novels have an unrelenting, sardonic quality to them that puts them on par with the best of Thompson and Woolrich.

[2] White or red? It’s never said.

[3] Makes sense given that the brief biography in the back of the book states that Grant has an undergraduate degree in psychology.

A big, fat cockroach scurried up the armrest and crawled over my shoulder. It reached my neck and came to rest on the throbbing carotid artery. When I felt the cold touch of its mandibles, I reached up, pinched the insect’s thorax, and squeezed until its dark ichor stained my fingernails. I tossed the corpse onto the filthy floor and never considered the cockroach again.

“This place is such a dump,” snickered the redhead on the couch beside me. I did not know her name. I only knew that the other homeless junkies referred to her as “Big Red.” The nickname was ironic because Big Red weighed less than one hundred pounds and stood an inch below five feet. When she smiled, she flashed a graveyard full of semi-rotten yellow teeth. Her sallow skin was mostly ink with small patches of stained and bruised white flesh poking through. I studied the tattoos: an overweight Venus holding the severed head of a blonde male with a sharp jawline, a raccoon wearing a crown and sitting atop a throne of garbage, and, most noticeable of all, the eldritch demon Baphomet floating atop a rainbow and flanked by two unicorns armed with Kalashnikovs. They were the markings of a deeply unserious person. And yet, in the few minutes that I had known her, she had proven serious about one thing: heroin.

“C’mon, man,” she said. “Give me a kiss of that Afghan gold you’ve been hocking all night.”

“I dunno, Red. That solution is the most potent one in my arsenal,” I cooed. “It’s pure, and even old timers who remember the uncut Turkish skag of the ‘70s can’t handle it.”

“Now I know you’re lying. Ain’t no way junkies from the ‘70s are still alive. How dumb do you think I am?”

I wanted to say something smart. I wanted to remind the little runaway, who was no older than a straight twenty, that she had voluntarily entered a flophouse with a known drug dealer. She knew the reputation of the neighborhood outside, and she knew that nobody—no one else in the whole wide world—knew where she was. I wanted to remind her of how idiotic all those decisions had been, but instead I shut up, got my syringe, and prepped the hot dose for her. I placed the lighter under the bent spoon and waited for the liquid to boil and stink. Big Red kept her eyes on the whole process. They grew larger and more covetous as her veins neared impalement. I saw her itch and scratch her arm until blood rose underneath the many layers of dry, dead skin. I thwacked the inside of her elbow a few times until I found the fattest crimson highway. I told her to close her eyes and think happy thoughts. Instead, Big Red started pontificating about Afghanistan’s recent history and the many failures of Operation Enduring Freedom. I didn’t have the heart (nor the desire) to tell her that the shot had no connections to Afghanistan at all.

The fix that sent Big Red into paralysis within two minutes was born and bred in a Bayboro laboratory run by a runt, hunchbacked associate of the Sinaloa Cartel. Delgado was his name, and he always loved to tease me, a townie drug dealer, that his solution could hardly be considered heroin at all.

“Little opium,” he’d say every pickup day. “All chemicals. Cemetery chemicals, and little opium.”

I checked the clock on my cellphone. I counted the seconds until five minutes elapsed. I wandered into the apartment’s gloom and removed my ratty backpack. From it, I pulled out a pair of black latex gloves and a makeshift burlap hood. I put the hood over her head, secured it with duct tape, then rolled up the barely alive junkie in a soiled sleeping bag. I hoisted her on my shoulders and walked out of the apartment building’s back door without incident. Nobody stopped me and asked me about my odd-shaped bundle. No curious neighbor peeped out from behind a chain bolt, and the handful of people out walking that night either kept their eyes on their shoes or on the blue lights of their cellphones. It was that kind of neighborhood.

I checked Red’s pulse one more time before I sealed her in the trunk of my car. I did my best not to think about my cargo during the twenty-minute ride out into Fenham, but that proved impossible. I wondered about Big Red’s life—her childhood, which I assumed was traumatic, and her high school years. I mused aloud about how a girl born in the wealthiest nation in the world, and in one of the nicer states to boot, wound up addicted to heroin. I also considered just how common her type was. It used to be, back when I first started slinging dope and pushing pills in Bayboro, that only real sickos and lowlifes enjoyed drugs enough to become addicted. Sure, back in the day, I sold endless bags of weed to frat kids and professional layabouts. Those types have existed forever and will continue to exist regardless of socio-economic trends. But, after 2008 hit, cynicism and hopelessness followed in the wake of the Great Recession. Everyone became a junkie: the pretty cheerleader, the high-strung office worker, the laborer with a bad back, your grandma’s best friend from Bingo. Everyone not lucky enough for a steady 9-5 with benefits became unemployed or underemployed zombies. Horrible for the country and its culture, but great for my bottom line.

Does that make me a vampire? Once upon a time, I’d say “Yes,” but not anymore, not after meeting the man in the funeral home.

I stuck to the pitch-black back roads that wound through the marshy countryside. I rolled down the window halfway through the ride and breathed in the salty tang of the far-off Atlantic. I fished for a cigarette in my pocket but only found a soggy, leftover roach. I shrugged my shoulders and said, “What the hell.” I put flame to paper and inhaled as much as possible. I felt light, almost as if I were floating above everything, as the green sign for Fenham, population 1,280, came into view. I made the familiar right turn by the abandoned Citgo station and kept it steady until I saw the weak, blue lights above the Doric columns.

The funeral parlor, aka Hastur & Denning’s Forever Home.

I rolled past the entrance and parked the car near a thicket of trees, thus making it invisible to any passerby. I grabbed a hammer just in case, but after opening the trunk and staring down at the motionless sleeping bag for several minutes, I relaxed. Big Red was still drifting along the Lethe. I grabbed the limp and lifeless body again and carried it down the well-worn path that led to the funeral home’s back entrance.

I pressed my finger on the solid white rectangle below the word: “Speak.” I probably pressed my lips too close to the intercom, but I wanted to make sure that the old man heard me.

“Melmoth,” I intoned into the receiver. I repeated the strange password a second time. With an audible click, the back door opened. I fumbled for a while in the dark until I found the dimmer switch. The room went from stygian darkness to a more acceptable gloom, allowing me to take stock of my surroundings.

The rear of the house was mostly empty, with an unused kitchen lacking pots and pans and a handful of hard plastic carts for transport. I placed Red on one of these carts. I couldn’t resist a childish urge to push the cart as fast as possible, then place my feet on the second shelf underneath Red’s body. I even said “Weeeee” as Red and I glided down the linoleum. When we came to a stop in front of the elevators, I cut out the ribaldry and returned to stone-faced seriousness. I pressed the down arrow, then pressed the button for the basement.

The elevator was cold and silent, smelling of a mixture of ammonia and earth. There were other smells too, which I always chalked up to the same “cemetery chemicals” that Delgado dumped into my knock-out shots for the man in the basement. Formaldehyde. Glutaraldehyde. Humectants. Sick smells—a bouquet of death and decay. I always hated going down into the home’s basement, but money is money, and the man in the parlor paid better than any regular customer.

I wheeled Big Red through a series of dark corridors until I saw the dim light blazing in the embalming room. I knew it was the embalming room from experience, and, unlike everywhere else in the home, it showed signs of habitation. There was dried blood on the tiles, and a sterile, antiseptic taste to the air in the room that hinted at regular usage. I hated it too; it always made me gag.

I moved to park Red underneath the burning overhead light but stopped when I realized that the room was full. In the small, cloying space, two other bodies lay stretched out on their own plastic beds. I studied both. One belonged to a wizened old man with more wrinkles than a Shar-Pei puppy. His scrunched-up face was frozen forever in a rictus grin that I found unsettling. His pale skin was a motley patchwork of yellows and purples, making him spotted and somewhat bovine in death. Across from him was a young man whose cause of death was obvious. My stomach churned at the sight of the self-inflicted entry wound at the temple. The man, or whoever worked for him during the daytime, hadn’t bothered to sew up the shocking wound.

“Just put the new one in the middle.” The voiced purred from somewhere in the darkness. I recognized the voice and its accent instantly. It was the man, and I did as he asked. I pushed Big Red one last time and dropped her off between her two new friends. I put my fingers on her throat once more.

“Still alive, but getting weaker,” I said. “Delgado is brewing it stronger and stronger every time.”

“Do you have anymore?” the man hissed.

“Anymore what?”

“Anymore of the drug?”

I reached into the pocket of my jacket and found the syringe. I had expected an empty needle, but, to my surprise, there were still remnants of the drug left. I held the syringe underneath the light so that the man could see. He let out a disgusting sound. I cannot describe it, but I can tell you that it sounded like lust. Pure lust.

“Hit her again,” he said.

“That’ll kill her outright,” I offered.

“Hit her again.”

I shrugged my shoulders once more. After all, what did I care? Big Red was just another customer, or rather just another dead customer in a long line of such miserable souls. She meant nothing much to me, just like she meant nothing much to the world at large. Besides, the man always paid and paid well. Red hadn’t even paid for the first hit.

I leaned over, removed the burlap hood from her head, and directly injected the rest of the syringe into Red’s neck. The plunger wasn’t all the way deployed before the man leapt from the darkness and began gnawing on Red’s throat. I had to jump back to keep from being bitten myself. I crawled on my hands and knees until I found a safe corner where I could watch and hear the last moments of Big Red. Her eyes opened for a split second, and her thin, cracked lips emitted a defeated gasp, before it was all over, and she went off to the nevermore world all alone.

As for the man, he was like a ravenous wolf—all fangs and frenzy—as he tore into the dead girl’s lungs. Blood gushed like a geyser until some parts of the embalming room looked like the middle of a red rainstorm. Big Red’s head lulled back and forth as the man chewed, and eventually, it shifted so far to the right that I heard it snap and fall off. It hit the wet floor with a dull thud, like an old bowling ball dropping on a well-oiled lane. The man kept feeding after that. He did not stop until after he swallowed a few of Big Red’s fingers.

The calm that followed was the worst. The man, with a mouth rimmed red with gore, slumped on the floor. I recognized the posture immediately—it was the slouch of a junkie deep in chemically-induced bliss. The man’s tiny black pupils contracted even further as his lids grew heavy, and his breathing, which was always a thin wheeze when he wasn’t feeding, slowed to an imperceptible humming. He was higher than a kite, and my existence didn’t register at all.

I let him bask in the deliciousness of the blood and drugs for a while. This was the man’s primary reason for being: drug-laced blood turned him on something fierce. He’d told me once before that getting a hit of heroin or a dollop of cocaine made the plasma taste so much better. He’d told me that it was better than sex or murder, and he confessed that he knew both well enough to be an expert. I had tried to ask him a little bit about his past, but he’d shot me down like always. The man…the ancient man of the parlor…guarded his secrets well.

After an eternity of minutes, I stood up and tried to tiptoe my way back to the elevators. Our SOP dictated that an envelope full of cash would be left waiting for my fingers by the front entrance. I was naturally greedy for money, but that night I was also greedy to get away. I didn’t want to sit through another sales pitch from the man; I didn’t want to hear another spiel about the benefits of trading places.

I only made it a pace or two before the man was awake, alert, and by my side. I felt his icy touch near the nape of my neck, and his foul breath warm in my ear.

“Have you thought about it?” he asked. “Have you really considered the proposal?”

“The answer is still no. I may not have a great life, but I’m in no rush to die. It’s enticing, sure, but I like the sunshine too much. Besides, I don’t want to steal such a perfect set-up from you.”

The man chuckled. It was a mirthless laugh. It was closer to a snarl than a smile. “Yes, I’ve avoided detection for a long, long time down here. In such a place and in such a position, death and dead bodies are routine. It’s the expectation. It’s lovely being able to eat in peace.”

“See,” I said in a jovial tone that was absolutely forced. “There’s no reason to mess up something that’s working. I bring ‘em to you, you have your breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and then the daytime crew cleans ‘em up for burial.”

“Cremation,” he hissed. “They’re always cremated.”

I nodded my head. “Economical and wise.”

The man grunted. “This is all pointless babble. I will have my answer. Do you accept the terms in exchange for undeath?”

Despite everything sane in my body telling me not to, I looked the man in his eyes. I said, “No.” No, I was not going to accept his curse and strap the dybbuk onto my back just because I was afraid of judgement. I told him that I’d take the chance of facing hellfire after my overdose or execution rather than embrace a guaranteed torture without end.

I didn’t want to live off corpses. At least not literally.

“You will say yes,” the man promised. “You will come to see.”

I didn’t say anything more. I used hand signals to confirm that the money was in the usual place. The question bored the man, but he indicated that yes, the cash was in its proper spot. I saluted him, then turned on my heel and made my way upstairs. I took the steps this time just in case. Elevators tend to be slow or break down, and I didn’t want to go out like a dumb and helpless victim in a horror movie. I at least wanted to have a fighting chance should the man attempt to make my decision for me.

I inhaled the fresh air as soon as I left the funeral home. The cool breeze felt good in my lungs. It felt nice to feel my living blood pump and settle and then pump some more. I found my car again, and once inside, I pulled out the envelope and counted the green-backed bills.

$6,000. Blood money. Twenty years of life reduced to six thousand dollars.

I counted the money a couple of times more before I opened the glovebox and retrieved a piece of paper and a pen. I wrote down all the supplies and essentials I needed to keep my operation going. I even sketched out an idea for expansion. I folded the paper three times and slipped it into my back pocket. I put the key in the ignition, backed out, and drove away from the parlor.

As I turned and headed back to Bayboro and its roaches and junkies and uncaring citizenry, I couldn’t help but feel that the man’s cold, lifeless eyes were staring at me. I could have looked into the rearview mirror and seen his pale, sunken face beaming at me with that awful, bloody mouth twisted into a smirk, or I could have gazed into the dirty glass and jumped out of my skin upon seeing his shadow racing after my taillights. Instead, like millions of people every day, I decided to play dumb, close my eyes to death, and drive forward back to my cancerous, exploitative routine.

It is a wonderful life after all.

The paperback version of this book is now live on Amazon for a steal at an even $7!

Kindle/eBook is coming soon!

Thank you for the support.

1325 Publishing is proud to announce that this July will see the publication of The Sad, Violent Life of Sandy Preston by Arbogast (@Arbogast1325).

Two novellas in a single volume, The Sad, Violent Life of Sandy Preston covers the pathetic career of Sandy Preston—failed leftist mercenary, failed Florida man, failed private eye. In the first book, Heartbreak & Lechery (originally published by Terror House in March 2024), Sandy is a cut-rate private investigator in Gainesville, Florida who takes a job on behalf of Cindy Brubaker, a bartender with a missing sister. Said sister is named Marie, and she is a successful blackmailer who gets snatched up before she can be sold to a powerful crime boss in Miami. Sandy is sent down a hot and bloody rabbit hole that features three Gainesville hoods, an outlaw biker with a sadistic streak, and a complex web of sex trafficking, drugs, and murder.

A decade after the events in Heartbreak & Lechery, Sandy has relocated to rural Mid-Atlantic where, in a county that has outlawed all burials, he takes a job as the overnight manager of a funeral home that doubles as a laboratory. Sandy is in charge of making sure every county corpse is “repurposed” for biomedical research and the cosmetics industry. Sandy’s quiet, anonymous life gets upended by a co-worker accused of smuggling body parts from the funeral home, and a deputy who asks Sandy to solve the case of a missing pyx. These two investigations eventually intertwine in a sordid world of Satanic sleaze.

The Sad, Violent Life of Sandy Preston is hard-boiled detective fiction with a twist of horror. Sandy is no Marlowe or Spade, and every time he stumbles forward, our hapless (anti) hero pays for his unintentional success.

Short, punchy, violent, and tragic, this is the book you need for your dirty, black summer.

Glorious cover art by the one and only Matthew Lawrence.

Here, in this powerful piece of verse, Matt Forney, grapples with drug addiction, despair, sex, & death.

the girl who saved my life

smiles down at traffic

on interstate 81

she cowers in the closet

when I offer her

a glass of water

she throws a soccer cleat

across the room

and hits me so hard

my eye is swollen shut

for a week

even in death

the world can’t stop

raping her

Hank God her book’s title

is in the corner

gotta recoup the cost

of that billboard somehow

her entire life reduced

to a PSA

why not dig up

her ashes

and snort them

at least

she’d find

that funny

“you’re the only man

I don’t find disgusting”

she whimpers

between thrusts

“take your fucking medicine”

she sneers

smacking my shoulder

if i try to stand up

she lit herself on fire

to keep me from sweating

the deadliest drug

is affect

I’m the reason

she ended up

with a feeding tube

down her throat

at Four Winds

I’m to blame

for the description

of her vagina

on Kiwi Farms

and yet

when I finally visit her grave

the first thing

I’m going to say is

I’m sorry you had to witness

that cringe

Here is a list of books that we have published since opening our crypt doors in 2025.

1. The Return of Patrick Midnight by Arbogast — The second book in the Midnight & Blackstone series, this short, slim collection sees the special agent and his ancestral shade battle demons, Bolsheviks, and mad scientists all over the world. A must-have for pulp fans.

2. The Time of Monsters by T.J. Martinell — A two-fisted novel full of thrills, gunplay, and genetically-engineered super soldiers designed to overthrow the U.S. government. Here, a pair of tough-as-nails spies take up arms to fight against the Reds who have infiltrated their secret society for the purposes of installing a Communist regime in Washington, D.C. For fans of Robert E. Howard and Ian Fleming.

3. The Curtsy & The Kiss by Andy Nowicki — A young and religious high school graduate dumps her boyfriend just before entering college. This decision proves profound, for when the young woman meets an entrancing young man at her first house party, she discovers that he is none other than her lover from an alternative timeline where Carthage defeated Rome before taking over the galaxy. Strange and romantic, this science fiction novella will make you question everything.

4. Darkness Over the Potomac by Parker Longbaugh — Welcome to the hellish world of hard-boiled horror. In a series of interconnected tales featuring a hotel detective, a D.C. gun club dedicated to fighting monsters, and other liminal types, Parker Longbaugh uncovers a capital city full of cultists who worship a female fertility deity of Lovecraftian proportions. Bloody and visceral, these tales are gorgeously grotesque and undeniably masculine.

5. Creepin’ Clues — Edited by Arbogast and featuring the work of a diverse array of authors, Creepin’ Clues is a compendium of stories all dealing with the figure of the occult detective. Sometimes the gumshoe comes from the Sherlockian mold, while at other times the shamus follows in the footsteps of Spade and Marlowe, but every story in this excellent collection touches about the darker side of criminality. This is one of 1325’s most popular publications!

6. Full Moon Reaction by Justin Geoffrey — Originally published by Terror House Press in 2022, this COVID-era gem is a complex work of political philosophy, history, sociology, and occultism. The elusive Mr. Geoffrey displays an expansive mind unencumbered by specialization. Here, the reader is taken through the darkest alleys of American history, plus they are treated to a glimpse of a possible future that is brighter than the darkness of the 2020s.

Here it is — the final excerpt for the forthcoming MEMOIRS OF PATRICK MIDNIGHT. If you like this work, then please subscribe to NEMESIS for their continuing publication of the latest Midnight & Blackstone novellette. Also, BOLO for the book when it finally drops.

Also, to truly understand this interlude, please read “The Horror of Hollywoodland” first.

The writer sipped his glass of Scotch and complimented Patrick Midnight on his fine selection of whiskeys.

“Would you believe that most of this stuff was my father’s?” Midnight said.

The other man, who was short and slender, with heavily hooded eyes that made him look permanently sleepy, expressed surprise. “Really? Well, a toast to old man Midnight then.”

The younger Midnight finished his glass in one quick swallow. “Yes, to the late, great Horace Walpole Midnight.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know that he had passed.”

“It’s quite alright, Mr. Wandrei. My father has been dead for five years now.”

“An illness?”

“No. He was not sick.”

“An accident?”

Midnight looked down at the carpet beneath his feet. He kicked at a few imaginary clouds of dust before answering. “If you don’t mind, I’d prefer not to talk about that.”

Wandrei apologized. He reached out towards a side table and picked up a notepad. From an inner jacket pocket, he produced a pencil that had recently been chewed by either a canine or its human owner.

“I guess we can now talk about your case, Mr. Midnight.”

“A good idea,” Midnight said. Three weeks prior, he had contacted Mr. Wandrei’s publisher in New York. That missive had been a simple fan letter expressing appreciation for Wandrei’s detective character, I.V. Frost. Ever since March, when the Roosevelt administration dropped the hammer on the Society of Gentlemen Geographers under the lie that the group was a front for Italian and German interests, Midnight had found that he had a lot of free time on his hands. There were no more missions, no more meetings with Stanley Hopkins or Major Steptoe, and no more traveling. He therefore sequestered himself at home and read. He read a lot, especially the many true-crime and detective pulp magazines he bought in bulk from a pharmacist in Providence.

After Wandrei personally answered Midnight’s letter, the former special agent hit upon an idea: What about hiring Mr. Wandrei as a ghost writer? Midnight figured that he could make some much-needed money selling his memoirs to Clues or Black Mask as slightly fictionalized versions of real events. Wandrei proved receptive to the idea, and thus he found himself, with pencil in hand, ready to be the Doctor Watson to Patrick Midnight’s Sherlock Holmes.

“So,” Midnight said, “I think a good place to start would be my brief tangle with the Hollywood Gorilla Man. That was a clear-cut case. No mumbo-jumbo.”

“That’s good,” Wandrei said while sitting up a little in his leather chair. “We can save the spookier stuff for Weird Tales after we get the first few stories off the ground.”

“You’ve got a real mind for the business, Mr. Wandrei.”

“I’ve been earning my milk for years in this game. A lot of fellows think too much about the art aspect, almost like they’re Rembrandt without the paint. Me? I know that you can write the world’s best story, but if nobody buys it, then nobody reads it.”

“Perfectly logical to me,” Midnight said. “Back to our ape man. It was the summer of 1931. I had just gotten back from a mission in Europe. Nothing particularly fancy, mind you, but I still had earned my required RnR. I did not get to enjoy it, however, as I received an unexpected phone call on the afternoon following the usual debrief at the New York office.”

“Who was on the phone?”

Midnight smiled. He struck up a Lucky Strike. He coughed a few times. A tight household economy had forced him to start smoking a cheaper brand, and he was still not used to the harsher flavor of American cigarettes. He dearly missed his Gauloises.

“A friend by the name of Tod Garrett.”

“What? The movie director?”

“The very same one. He was a wannabe screenwriter when I first met him at Draco Studios in 1929. He got his breakthrough in ’30. By ’31, he was the most in-demand mystery director in California. He was halfway through making The Tell-Tale Heart when he dropped everything and called me. He said something about an attempted murder.”

Wandrei cocked an eyebrow and made furious notes in his notepad.

“Tod gave me most of the scoop over the phone, but it wasn’t until I went out west that I saw just how bad the case was. A string of girls—all butterfly types, you know. Three beautiful women who wanted to make it in the movies, but somewhere along the way had fallen in love with the party scene. I forget most of their names now, but the last victim was Mildred Bannerman.” Midnight spelled the surname for Wandrei.

“Okay. B-A-N-N-E-R-M-A-N. Got it.”

“Right. Poor little Mildred was a farm girl from Missouri who wanted to marry Valentino. She stole some money from her father and rode the rails until discovering to her horror that Rudy was already dead. She stuck around in Hollywood anyway. Became a nudie cutie for aspiring sculptors and painters. Earned himself a reputation as someone on the loose side, if you catch my meaning.”

Wandrei pinched his forefinger and thumb together in the universal symbol for approval.

“Mildred did get some acting credits. It was all background extra stuff until my pal Tod decided to hire her for a supporting part in his Poe production. She only enjoyed one day of stardom before someone murdered her in her own bed.”

“Okay, Mr. Midnight. Here’s the part where you fill me in on all the details. Please don’t skimp or throw something away as useless. Give me everything.”

“Alright. The crime occurred at precisely 10:21 P.M. Someone unknown and unseen entered 713 N Bonnie Brae St. via an open window and strangled Mildred Bannerman to death. The coroner told me later that the young woman’s windpipe was practically crushed into powder.”

“Did anyone hear anything?” Wandrei asked.

“Nobody. Not even Mildred’s roommate, who was still awake in an adjoining bedroom.”

“Fascinating. Any suspects?”

“I’ll get to that in a second. First, let me fill you in on what happened the night I arrived in Los Angeles. After meeting with an apoplectic Tod, who had Universal already breathing down his neck about production costs, I took myself out to dinner at the Brown Derby before retiring to Tod’s bungalow, where he had a guest room all made up for me. I desperately wanted sleep that night after days spent on an uncomfortable train, but events denied me that pleasure.”

“What happened?”

“The killer struck again. This time, the victim lived on the other side of Echo Park. Esther Miller. She, too, was a member of the cast for The Tell-Tale Heart. Fortunately for her, she woke up just in time to see the creep climbing through her window. Her scream woke up the whole neighborhood, causing the strangler to flee into the night.”

“What did she see?” Wandrei asked. “Did she give a description of the killer?”

“Sure. She said it was a gorilla.”

“A gorilla?!”

“Yeah. A big, black primate from the steamy jungles of the Congo. All muscles and bad attitude.”

Wandrei held up a hand. “Wait a minute, Midnight. A real gorilla?”

“I’ll get to that part. Tod woke me up to tell me about the murder attempt. We drove out to Miller’s apartment in Tod’s new Opel. The crime occurred during that one time of the night when there’s no traffic in the city, so we made it in seconds. I found Esther already in a state. She was crying and blathering on like someone in the grips of hysteria. Couldn’t blame her. It’s not every day that a wild animal tries to sneak into your house in order to murder you.”

Wandrei snickered before pouring himself a new glass.

“I asked her to relive the scenario again for me, and then I went about exploring the scene. Tod, Reverend Blackstone, and I searched every inch of that room looking for clues. We were on the point of giving up when I found the smoking gun.”

“Okay. Hold up a minute,” Wandrei said. “First of all, who is ‘Reverend Blackstone.’”

Midnight laughed out loud. “I don’t think you would believe me if I told you, Mr. Wandrei.”

“You forget that I write ghost stories and stories about werewolves,” the writer said as a riposte.

“Fair enough. Still, let’s just say that Blackstone is another friend of mine who has been beside me for most of my cases. I would introduce him to you, but he’s away at the moment. Today is the anniversary of the Great Swamp Fight. That event holds a special place in his heart.”

“I see. My other question then concerns what you found in Ms. Miller’s room.”

“Hair. I found coarse, dark-colored hair on the windowsill.”

Wandrei’s eyes grew big, and his jaw hung open. “So, it was a gorilla? Was it a trained killer like in Poe’s ‘Murders in the Rue Morgue?’”

Midnight shook his head. “I took the hair back to Tod’s house. I knew that the little oddball kept a microscope as part of his interest in criminology. I used it to my advantage, and upon examining the single hair, I discovered something conclusive—the hair did not belong to an ape at all.”

“Did it belong to another animal? A chimpanzee, maybe?”

“No, it did not belong to any animal but a stage gorilla. It was hair from a costume. Fake. Artificial.”

Wandrei took a heavy pull from his Scotch. “Why would a killer dress up like a gorilla?”

“Normally, that would be a question for Mr. Freud, but I can explain. You recall how I met Tod at Draco Studios, right?”

“Yes.”

“Well, before it closed its doors, Draco Studios was silently owned by the Society. The original goal was for the lot to become a kind of money-laundering operation in which Society loot would be laundered through movie productions. President Roosevelt is half right when he calls the Society a ‘den of criminals.’ A huge portion of our activities was extralegal, but everything was for the greater good of the United States and its allies. Do you believe that?”

“Sure,” Wandrei said.

“Good. Anyway. Draco was left too independent for too long. Graf Von Eberling…he was the fellow most interested in using the studio to finance his pet projects in East Prussia…left one of his war buddies in charge. That man proved to be a wastrel, and by ’29, Draco was a hotbed of drug creeps, flesh peddlers, and other unsavory types.”

Wandrei asked Midnight to pause a moment so he could write everything down. When he was finished, he made the okay sign again.

“One of the worst of the Draco bunch was an actor and stuntman named Al Contreras. A Mex from Tijuana, Contreras was a pimp and procurer who used Draco as a base of operations. He hosted sex parties on the back lots that got really, really wild. One of these parties ended in murder. That was the case where I met Tod and broke up a Tijuana-to-Chinatown sleaze ring that also included a few black magicians in the mix.”

Wandrei held up a finger. “I remember that. You sent me that manuscript to read on the train ride up. ‘The Horror of Hollywoodland.’”

“Correct.”

“Wait one second! Contreras…Al Contreras. Wasn’t he involved in that case too?”

“Yep. Al played the gorilla.”

Wandrei’s eyes bulged again. “Are you telling me that Contreras kept his gorilla get-up so that he could murder aspiring starlets?”

“Not just any starlets, Mr. Wandrei. Every single girl, even the first two who I have sadly forgotten about, had some kind of connection to Tod and his Poe picture.”

“So, it was revenge?”

“That was the immediate factor. Al hated Tod, and he hated me too, for playing a role in getting him blacklisted from the movie colony. After the downfall of Draco, which the Los Angeles press ate up like candy, Al had to flee back across the border to avoid the heat. When he appeared two years later, his mind was fully gone. Heroin and too much tequila had turned the man into a revenant—the mindless, shambling dead. His only reason for continuing was revenge, and in his muddled brain, he figured that killing those girls would eventually lead to Universal killing off Tod’s picture. He almost succeeded too.”

“Fascinating,” Wandrei said. “How did all of this end?”

“A bit anticlimactic. Tod waited a few days before putting an announcement in one of the trade journals. MARGUERITE PLYMOUTH NAMED AS NEW STAR OF POE PICTURE. Tod has a way with words, and that announcement read like the real McCoy. That was the goal, of course. We set a trap for Contreras and even gave him directions.”

“I suppose Marguerite Plymouth is not a real person.”

“Oh, no. She’s very real and still very much alive. Three years ago, she lived at 857 N Iliff Street. A nice, comfortable little place in Pacific Palisades. Tod made sure that the announcement mentioned that. We figured that Contreras wouldn’t waste time striking again, and we were right. He smashed through a downstairs window that same night, but instead of finding petite Mrs. Plymouth, he discovered to his horror that I was waiting for him.”

“What did you do?”

Midnight shrugged his shoulders. “Why, I shot him, of course. I think I fired four times. I used a .25 automatic. A Browning.” Midnight produced the gun by simply reaching into his pants pocket. He handed the weapon to Wandrei for inspection.

“Amazing.”

“Every shot landed,” Midnight continued. “The killing blow was the one that caught the gorilla man in the mouth. No more roaring for the king of the jungle,” he quipped. Wandrei laughed too.

“An incredible tale, Mr. Midnight.”

“You have enough for a marketable yarn?”

“I think so,” Wandrei said. “I’ll change a lot of the particulars to keep all the names safe.”

“Of course. Even though the Hollywood Gorilla Man murders did not make the papers out here, it’s best to muddy up the waters a bit so the Californians don’t get upset.”

“Yes, sir,” Wandrei said. “I’ll go back to my hotel tonight and write up a rough draft. I work pretty quickly and should have something pretty and polished for New York by early next week.”

“Excellent,” Midnight said. With that, the two men shook hands and said goodnight.

Midnight would hear nothing from Mr. Wandrei for the remainder of 1934. Indeed, the next communique would not arrive until the spring of 1935, when Wandrei sent a telegram apologizing to Midnight.

Could not sell your gorilla man story. Stop. Rejected by all the magazines. Stop. Labeled as outlandish and silly. Stop. Dime Detective called it a bad tale. Stop.

Rather than crumpling the telegram and throwing it away, Midnight decided to make it the centerpiece of a new scrapbook documenting his post-Society years.

“Here’s the evidence that I tried to make it in the pulps,” he would tell people for years afterward.

Provided here for your entertainment is the First Interlude from the forthcoming MEMOIRS OF PATRICK MIDNIGHT. The fourth book in the Patrick Midnight & Reverend Blackstone series, this brief tale sees the special agent for the Society of Gentlemen Geographers and his ghostly ancestor fend off an attack from a demon cat.

If you like this story, then please consider being a paid subscriber to NEMESIS, where they are currently serializing a Patrick Midnight novelette.

Patrick Midnight wiped the heavy sweat from his brow. A quick flick of his fingers sent the sweat flying across to the other wall. The perspiration made a strange pattern on the unpainted concrete. Midnight studied it for a moment, then made a joke about Modernist art that Reverend Blackstone either did not appreciate or did not understand.

“You know, it’s only been a few hours, but I now understand why Congress hightails it out of the city every summer. This town is unlivable after June.”

It was the afternoon of July 21st, and Midnight and Blackstone were busy with one of their weirdest cases. The duo was deep in the guts of the Capitol building, where a series of twisting caverns connected all the major appendages of the federal government. For armaments, Midnight sported a portable Leica and an electric torch given to him by the Metropolitan Police. Of course, the special agent also had his trusty Browning .25 automatic tucked away in his sport coat, but the Society of Gentlemen Geographers had given him explicit instructions to leave the creature alive. Trophy hunting was not allowed on this mission.

“But what if I’m attacked?” Midnight had asked Stanley Hopkins prior to being escorted into the Oval Office. On the other side of the door, the wife of the most powerful man in the world awaited them both.

“I’d lose respect for you, Pat. Imagine needing a gun to defend yourself against a house cat?”

“A cat? What do you mean…”

Midnight’s question was cut off by a secretary informing him and Hopkins that the First Lady was ready to see them. The snooty, hatchet-faced functionary announced Midnight and Hopkins, which caused the regal and sad-eyed First Lady to leave her chair and to extend her hand. Rather than a title, she introduced herself simply as Grace.

Midnight felt an immediate attraction to the kind, motherly woman. She looked much younger than her age, and her cheerful, vibrant demeanor was a stark contrast to the dour taciturnity of her husband. The president was not there that day, so Midnight felt bold enough to pay the First Lady a compliment.

“I must say that you look beautiful, madame. Oof!” The swift ejaculation, which caused Hopkins to smirk and the First Lady to take a step backward, was the result of Reverend Blackstone kicking Midnight in the stomach from the inside. The special agent apologized, blaming the interruption on a too-generous helping of Colman’s mustard on his lunchtime sandwich.

“I see,” said the First Lady. “Well, do you wish for me to call a physician?”

“No, no,” Midnight said. “I’ll be quite alright.”

“I see. I’m sure that you are quite used to pain. Your employers tell me that you are tough, Mr. Midnight.”

Midnight scratched behind his ear. “I suppose I am pretty hard-boiled, Mrs. Coolidge. Been in a fair number of scrapes.”

“My, you speak just like a ballplayer. As tall as one too.”

Midnight wasn’t sure whether that was a compliment, but then he remembered that the First Lady was the unofficial president of the Babe Ruth fan club. To her mind, a ball player must have been the pinnacle of virile masculinity. Midnight smiled and nodded his head.

“Well, Mr. Midnight, are you ready to play a game?”

“A game?”

“Yes, it will be quite a sport. Isn’t that right, Mr. Hopkins?”

Stanley stood up straighter and subtly adjusted his tie. It cheered Midnight to see his superior nervous. “That is correct, Mrs. Coolidge. Mr. Midnight is the perfect hunter for this occasion.”

Midnight interjected. “Hunter? Ballplayer? I’m everything but informed.”

The First Lady burst out laughing. She complimented the special agent’s quick wit. “You’re like my dear husband,” she said.

“Let’s not get his head too big just yet, Mrs. Coolidge,” Hopkins said. This statement caused the First Lady to laugh even harder.

“My, my. Isn’t your Society just full of natural comedians.”

“Not true, Mrs. Coolidge,” Midnight said. “Stanley and I are the best of the bunch. The rest are dullards.”

“Please, I beg of you. If you two keep making me laugh, then I shall be forced to adopt you like Rebecca and keep you near at all times.”

“Who is this Rebecca personage?” Blackstone grumbled from inside Midnight.

“A pet raccoon,” Midnight whispered so that only Blackstone could hear. The ghostly Puritan made a face of shock and disgust that no one saw.

“We should get down to business then,” Hopkins said. “Our organization would like to get this problem solved as quickly as possible.”

“I am not sure that it is a problem that can be solved, Mr. Hopkins. The demon has been with us for a long time.”

Midnight’s eyes widened. “The demon?”

“Yes, that is what it has been called since the time of President Van Buren. The demon cat has been the bane of every administration since the mid-1800s, and sadly, my husband is no exception. He has yet to see the feline fiend, but I have. The black shade visited me in my bed on the night of the last séance.”

“Okay, for the sake of total clarity, we’re talking about a demonic…housecat?”

“I am not entirely sure if it is a demon or if it is only a specter. Legends have it that the cat was once a gift from some foreign legate or another, and when it burrowed underneath the Capitol, it stayed there until it died.”

“And then rose again?”

“Correct.”

Midnight looked at Hopkins in confusion, but Stanley gave the special agent no response in return. He expected the other man to be more critical. Then again, like the First Lady, Hopkins was once a dabbling occultist. Maybe there was a residual bit of superstition in his hard-bitten soul?

“I can tell by your demeanor that you have doubts. Is that the case, Mr. Midnight?”

“It’s not that, Mrs. Coolidge. It’s just that…I…uhm…need a little more information.”

“Splendid. Well, I can tell you that the cat is no bigger than your average tom. Its coat is black—pure black. The thing is as silent as the grave, so when it appears, it does so without warning. The demon has been seen in almost every building, but it prefers to haunt the Capitol. An old rumor has it that there was once a burial chamber beneath the Capitol, and that is where the demon hides.”

Midnight whistled. “Boy, that’s some tale, Mrs. Coolidge. Getting a scare from that puss in your bedroom must have been rather unpleasant.”

“Seeing the demon is only half the problem,” the First Lady said gravely. “The larger issue concerns what the demon’s appearance portends.”

“Portends?”

“Yes, Mr. Midnight. It has long been held that the demon’s appearance is a warning. Whoever sees the black cat is doomed to misfortune. Not so long ago, a member of the Capitol police force stumbled upon the demon one night while doing his rounds. The following evening, he was dead of a heart attack! I have seen the demon, and I worry about my health and the health of my husband. I do not need to remind you and Mr. Hopkins that my husband’s safety is of great importance to the American people.”

“And we’re both Americans, and damn proud of it,” Midnight said as an aside.

The First Lady chuckled. “My, you really missed your calling. Can you pitch, Mr. Midnight?”

“I was okay as a reliever, but lousy as a starter. Couldn’t keep to the plate, even if my life depended on it.”

“I do enjoy your frankness, Mr. Midnight. So, with that same frankness in mind, what do you think about the idea of capturing the demon?”

“Normally, I’d ask ‘alive or dead,’ but that’s a silly question given the circumstances.”

“Yes, indeed. And by ‘capturing,’ I truly mean documenting the creature. We will have no gunplay in the Capitol.” The First Lady looked stern for the first time that afternoon.

“Duly noted, Mrs. Coolidge. Forgive me for being ignorant, but what good would taking pictures of the demon do?”

The First Lady folded her hands in prayer. “My last communication with the spirits convinced me that the demon is not all-powerful. It is a minor being, and as such, certain human activities can impede its larger designs. In plain English, I believe that you can scare the little devil enough by chasing after it to cause it to forget all about my family.”

Midnight shrugged his shoulders. “I suppose it’s worth a shot.”

“And if you’re successful,” the First Lady added, “pictures of the demon can be used as evidence. We can take the photos to the church and have them cleared. Plus, if we’re all so inclined, we could give the photos to the press. Imagine that Mr. Midnight: you become the man responsible for showing the world that ghosts really do exist.”

The special agent had to admit that, yes, that idea sounded terrific. Blackstone, on the other hand, boiled over with rage over the flippancy with which the entire assemblage treated the diabolic.

“Bunch of heathens!” he thought. “A filthy bunch of unbelievers.”

Hours later, after the sun set on the capital city, Midnight found himself sweating in the bowels of the Capitol building beside an equally cranky Reverend Blackstone. The pair had been hunting the spectral feline for hours without luck. Midnight was tired and hungry and longed for the cool bed of his hotel room. When he said as much to Blackstone, the Puritan silenced him with a single question.

“Are thou willing to deceive Goodwoman Coolidge?”

Midnight admitted that no, he did not feel like lying to the First Lady. He wiped more sweat from his brow and then picked up the Leica. Come hell or high water, he was going to get that damned cat’s photograph.

“For what purpose were these tunnels built?” Blackstone asked as he and his young charge walked through yet another hot, cloying tunnel. The walls were bare and unpainted, which spoke to the tunnels’ fully functional purpose.

“Hopkins told me that the original plan was to house all the presidents down here after their passing. A sort of American Valley of the Kings. You know, where Howard found King Tut a few years back.”

Blackstone sniffed. “A wretched idea. Blasphemous idolatry.”

“For once, I agree with you. Treating the president like a pharaoh rubs me the wrong way, too. Seems like something cooked up by an egghead at Harvard, or maybe one of those Virginia Cavaliers in Congress. You know they adore pomp and circumstance.”

Blackstone nodded his head in agreement.

“But nowadays,” Midnight continued, “the tunnels are seen as a kind of security guarantee. If the Germans or Bolos or Japs ever decide to invade the city, Congress can keep the government going down here.” Midnight tapped one of the stone walls. “No bomb is reaching this far below the surface, and no munition is breaking through these walls.”

“The devilry may not yet exist, but the works of man and Lucifer are ever expanding.”

“Speaking of the devil,” Midnight said with some flippancy. “What’s your opinion on the demon cat?”

“If it be real, then the feline is a familiar for some as-yet unknown witch or necromancer. Methinks that the giver of the animal intended to curse thy president. Sorcerers are capable of the sin of forethought owing to their diablerie, so it could be that the feline and the sorcerer are one and the same.”

“I see,” Midnight said. “A wizard wearing cat’s fur is a smashing notion. Then again, it could all be bunk.”

“Aye. Pestilential magistrates, which ye call ‘politicians,’ are not above gossiping like old hens.”

Midnight laughed at his ancestor’s scornful remark. The old Puritan was showing more and more of his humor lately, and it was a welcome development so far as Midnight was concerned. The haranguing sermons were still common, especially whenever the Society forced Midnight to take a train or (God help him) an airship, but the special agent hoped that they too would disappear with time.

Midnight’s mind stayed focused on the quirks of his ancestral shade until, with a quick poke of the finger, he was roused out of his reverie.

“Look, lad,” whispered the Puritan phantom. “I espy our quarry in the darkness.”

Midnight stopped and stood still. He narrowed his eyes and used the flashlight to illuminate the darkness in front of him. He moved the beam up and down and from east to west.

“I don’t see anything,” he said to Blackstone.

“Forsooth, the creature was there. Mine eyes have never betrayed me before.”

“It’s not there now,” Midnight said with a quick deployment of his flashlight. The yellow light flashed again before him, but this time the darkness was alive with movement. A quick jolt of blackness moved away from the light. Midnight saw the shape and decided to follow it.

“We may have found our Felix,” he said as he chased after the elusive specter. Blackstone did his best to slow down his descendant, but the special agent was too caught up in the chase to hear the warning.

“I wonder if I can get a candid photo,” Midnight said over his shoulder. While still traveling at a steady gallop, he held the Leica up to his right eye and aimed it out in front of him. The bright flash of the bulb temporarily blinded Midnight, but he saw just enough to notice that the camera had captured the demon cat as it took up a defensive posture. After rubbing his eyes, Midnight saw the bristly hairs raise on the cat’s back, and he saw its evil eyes sharpen with malice. A quick hiss presaged a pounce. The special agent was caught completely off guard by the demon cat’s strike. Its razor-sharp claws hacked away at his face’s flesh.

“Lord almighty! Since when can ghosts hurt the living?”

The demon cat not only clawed at Midnight’s face but also began biting him. Blood flowed freely from the small, yet painful wounds. The special agent’s first instinct was to reach for his .25, but he found the Leica again instead. From an awkward angle, with his arm outstretched away from his face and his wrist bent painfully, Midnight took a second picture. The bright flash once again harassed the demon, which leaped from Midnight’s bloodied face and scurried into the darkness.

“Got ‘em,” Midnight said. “I’ll bet that picture will fetch a million.”

“Thy face is a bleeding tapestry, and yet thou thinkest only of lucre?” chided Blackstone.

“It’s not just the money; it’s the job too. I think I just earned us another round of RnR.”

Blackstone harrumphed. Midnight pulled himself off the floor and met the shade’s eyes.

“You think I should get one more snap before leading up topside?”

Blackstone looked once over Midnight’s shoulder, then returned his gaze to the special agent. “Methinks that another picture matters not. If thou wants to get even bloodier chasing after the demon spawn, then be my guest.”

“Okay, then. If it’s okay with you, then why do you seem so sour?”

“We’re suffering a witch to live, lad.”

Midnight saw what Blackstone meant and agreed, but he also knew that Hopkins and the First Lady had been explicit in their instructions: the demon cat was to be left unmolested.

“Just one more picture to be sure,” Midnight said mostly to himself. He held the flashlight in front of him and took up a brisk jog. He huffed and puffed with the lungs of a chronic smoker but kept up his steady pace. He looked everywhere, but after ten minutes of exercise, he ceased his labor.

“The damned cat has fled,” he yelled back towards Blackstone. “He’s absconded too far down these tunnels. He’s probably across the border into Virginia by this point. Guess I’ll have to settle for two pictures.” With that, Midnight began walking back towards Blackstone, who hovered in the darkness as a translucent and floating head.

A heavy thwack sent the special agent back on his heels. The strike felt like a punch from Jack Dempsey, but the former heavyweight champion of the world was not down underneath the Capitol with Midnight and Blackstone. Someway and somehow, the demon cat had learned pugilism.

Midnight turned and tried to face his attacker. He groped in the darkness until his fingers folded the cold metal of the flashlight. He picked it up and held it in front of him one last time.

“Mother of God!” shouted the special agent. He turned on his heels and ran as fast as he could back towards Blackstone. When he found the Puritan, he demanded that the shade flee with him. Blackstone did not know what had frightened Midnight so, but he nevertheless did as instructed. His ectoplasm thinned into nothingness, and Blackstone returned to the familiar confines of Midnight’s lower intestine.

***

A heavily bandaged Midnight sat next to Hopkins in the latter’s Chrysler. Rather than take the train back to New York, Stanley offered to give Midnight a ride in style and comfort. Midnight took the offer but stayed mostly silent. He was not good company, for he pouted until Hopkins finally broke the ice somewhere near Kingston, Pennsylvania.

“The First Lady is happy with the work you did, Pat. She was very complimentary.”

Midnight sighed and looked out the window. “But the photos were no good. I don’t know how, but the demon didn’t show up.”

Hopkins patted Midnight on the thigh. “You can’t win them all, Pat. Besides, the First Lady and her circle of homespun spiritualists are convinced that you spooked the specter into an extended vacation. The frisky feline won’t bother the White House again, or at least not for a while.”

Midnight audibly agreed but silently contradicted this rosy picture. After what he had seen, which he could only describe as the beast’s true form, he was convinced that powers greater than himself and Reverend Blackstone were needed to exorcise the creature. He wrote as much in his final report, which Hopkins accepted, then quietly forgot. Over the ensuing weeks, Midnight noted a general willingness among members of the Society to treat the demon cat case as permanently solved. Whenever he would bring it up, or suggest that someone, preferably a priest straight from the Vatican, be sent back down into the tunnels to get rid of the demon cat for good, Hopkins and the others would smile and tell him to relax. None of them knew the true horror of the entity, so it was easy for them to scoff and carry on.

But, on that ride back to the city, Midnight was upset with himself but also happy to hear that the First Lady appreciated the sacrifice of his face. He touched one of the plaster bandages and winced.

“Does this case qualify for leave, or are you going to tell me it was a mild?” Midnight asked.

“Depends, Pat. If you tell me what you saw down there, then I’ll give you RnR. If you keep clammed up, then it’s mild, and you’re expected back in the office on Monday.”

Midnight’s cold, hard eyes looked at Hopkins. “I’ll see you Monday,” was all he said.

For the remainder of his life, Midnight would never tell a soul about what he saw that night underneath the Capitol. Not even Blackstone could coerce the truth out of him. And insofar as cats were concerned, Midnight preferred to keep them at a safe distance.

Black cats especially.

The following is the first chapter of a forthcoming book entitled THE SAD, VIOLENT LIFE OF SANDY PRESTON. The book consists of two novellas published together. The first novella, HEARTBREAK & LECHERY, was originally published by Terror House Press in March 2024. That novella sees Sandy Preston as a low-rent private eye in Gainesville, Florida who gets ensnared in an elaborate blackmail and kidnapping plot designed to take down an organized crime syndicate based in Miami. The second novella, the still unpublished CERTAIN LITTLE CRUELTIES, takes place years later in a county that has made burying the dead illegal. Here, Sandy is no longer a gumshoe, but a funeral home worker who once again finds himself in the middle of a mystery.

THE SAD, VIOLENT LIFE OF SANDY PRESTON will be out soon via 1325 Publishing.

***

“Hey yo, Duke. It’s me. You up?”

The pounding on his front door was heavy. Sandy turned over on his mattress, grabbed his ancient alarm clock, and read the time.

It was three o’clock in the afternoon. Sandy had been so close to a full eight hours of sleep for the first time in ages, and yet, at the last minute, an asshole from work had stumbled into his pleasant dreamworld and ruined everything.

“Give me a minute,” Sandy shouted back.

Sandy rolled off his mattress and grabbed a fresh pair of sweatpants. He then snatched up a hoodie to protect himself from the springtime chill. He looked at his disheveled bedroom, with its little mountains of clothes and books, and decided that nobody needed to see it but him. He shut the door behind him. He would meet all company in the sparse kitchen.

“Yeah,” he said to the unwanted visitor.

“Duke, I have something heavy to talk about. Can I come in?”

“Sure.”

Sandy let the man into the kitchen and offered him a seat at his antique table. The seat was an antique, too, purchased for less than twenty dollars at a thrift store long since out of operation.

“Just move in?”

“No, been here for a year.”

The two men shared a laugh at Sandy’s minimalist apartment. Besides the table and two chairs, Sandy owned a coffeemaker, a few pots and pans, and a single bookcase that tilted a little to the right. Everything else, from the refrigerator to the semi-workable stove, had come with the apartment.

He offered the man, Logan, something to drink. Logan asked for a glass of water.

“It’ll be tap, if that’s fine.”

Logan grimaced. Sandy knew that the young man had a lot of strange ideas about water purification and the county’s lackluster standards when it came to removing fluoride, but nevertheless he accepted a cool glass.

“So,” Sandy said, “what’s so important that you have to bother a night shift guy?”

“It’s about one of your co-workers, Duke. I think you need to handle him before the county does.”

Logan and everyone else at the home knew Sandy as “Duke.” None of them knew his real name, and that’s because Sandy Preston liked it that way. Even his employers knew him as Raymond Dukeman, alias Duke. A name change in Mississippi, along with new ID papers mailed to a P.O. box in Georgia, kept Sandy free and clear of a past that he wanted dead and buried. Even though Sonny Ahern was an old man rotting in a prison cell in Colorado, and Carl Mick was a corpse feeding maggots somewhere south of Fort Lauderdale, Sandy still maintained a base level of paranoia since being sucked into the world’s worst bait-and-switch almost a decade ago. As far as he knew, the contract on his life was still valid.

“Which co-worker?”

“C’mon, do you really have to ask? Which one of you ghouls is the weirdest? You don’t even have to think hard; you already know who I’m talking about.”

“Peyton?”

“Yeah, Peyton. The guy born into your line of work. A natural ghoul.”

Sandy didn’t like hearing that. Logan had a way of talking that annoyed Sandy. The younger man had a childlike whine to his voice, which no amount of street speak or gangland inflection could change. Logan was a smalltown kid from across the border in Pennsylvania, but all his mannerisms and posturing came directly from the many streaming services he lived off of. He lacked the aw-shucks charm of his Somerset County upbringing. Instead, he walked like Christopher Moltisanti, talked like Lil Dunya, and usually only thought about whatever the current algorithm told him to think about. Sandy, who intentionally lived in a world much older and quieter, couldn’t stand hyper-intensive cyborgs like Logan, who voluntarily outsourced their humanity to pocket machines.

“Am I like that, Logan? Do I seem like a dude born to be a ghoul?”

“Naw, you’re just gramps. That’s what you were born to be—the unc of the jobsite. Everyone needs one.”

“So long as I’m not Grandpa Ghoul, we’re cool.”

Logan made a comment about the older man’s wordplay and rhyming, then killed his smile and returned to Peyton. “The weirdo kid is doing something that he shouldn’t. I’d rather your shift handle it than the sheriff’s department.”

“If it’s really that serious, then shouldn’t the cops be involved?”

“I don’t like cops,” Logan said with a stern voice and meaner eye. Sandy knew that the kid wasn’t a serious crook, but he also knew that Logan dabbled in many illegal activities, including some that occurred during the day at the home.

“Besides,” Logan added, “I think real evidence is needed anyway.”

“And I seem like the guy to get it?”

“C’mon, Duke. You’re the manager down there. You’re the authority. When you ask them to jump, they all ask, ‘how high?’”

“No, they all say nothing and stare into space because all you kids are social retards,” Sandy said. “I get what you’re trying to say, though. I can request a QAV just like that.” Here Sandy snapped his fingers, which caused Logan to jump a little.

“That’s right. Give Peyton a QAV and turn his space inside out. Dude spends too much time in his cubbyhole anyway.”

Sandy put down his water and made the switch to coffee. He still had some left in his coffeemaker, and he used his microwave to heat it up. Logan grimaced again and said something about radiation and cancer.

“Listen,” Sandy said, “we’re all dying, so let me do it in my own way.”

“Do you really want to kick the bucket in this county?”

Now Logan had a point. Sandy, Peyton, and the rest of the funeral home’s overnight crew handled and repurposed dead bodies for eight hours each night. Cellophane baggies of blood and flesh and minced appendages were delicately labeled and stored for shipping each shift. Sandy’s job was to make sure everything matched the correct cadaver, and that each repurposed part was adequately labeled, indexed, and correctly assigned. It saved Sandy from having to get his hands dirty, but it also meant that he had to deal with the sheriff’s department or the federal government (God forbid) when anything went tits up. Cutting up bodies was preferable to that.

“There are better places to die. And besides, I don’t want you morning boys touching me.”

“Better to be a sunshiner than a ghoul,” Logan added with a hint of defensiveness in his joking tone.

“Ok, whatever, but what am I supposed to be looking for exactly?”

Logan instinctively looked over his shoulder and dropped his voice to a whisper. “Peyton is taking product home with him. Theft, but you know damn well that we don’t work at no damn convenience store or Wal-Mart. The little ghoul is sneaking out body parts.”

“For what?”

Logan lifted his arms and shook his head. “Something freaky, I guess.”

“How do you sunshiners know this anyway?”

“I’ll tell you but you have to promise to keep it quiet. Can you promise?”

Sandy smirked and said, “Sure.”

“Zeke and Ed sometimes use the home for extracurriculars. A sale here, a fuck there. You know, bad kid stuff that would sully the clean reputation of all sunshiners. Well, they’ve told me that they’ve done a wake and bake in the parking lot before work a few times, and each time they’ve seen Peyton haul heavy trash bags out to the dumpsters.”

“Nothing weird about that,” Sandy interrupted. “Some parts we can’t repurpose, plus we have trash like any other business.”

“What’s weird is that Peyton always takes a bag or two home with him. Zeke’s seen the weirdo put several big bags away in his car and drive off. You think he’s taking wastepaper home with him? C’mon, you already know.”

“The kid’s stealing corpses, or at least parts of them.”

“Like a natural ghoul.”

“Like a natural ghoul,” Sandy reiterated. The older man wiped the last remnants of sleep from his eyes, set his coffee cup down, and studied the ceiling for a second. He had a premonition of danger—of bad luck and bad news down the line. But, true to his hard-headed nature, Sandy decided to make his job interesting, and he agreed to investigate the rumors.

“I’ll hit the kid with a QAV and see if I can’t turn something up. Probably spring it on him right before sun-up.”

“Sounds good.” Logan stood up and gave Sandy a fist bump. The younger man moved towards the door.

“By the way,” Sandy said, “why did you come in person and not call me?”

“Nobody knows your number, OG. Besides, I was in the ‘hood.” Logan flashed a smile and reached into his pocket. He produced a glass vial with several small white clumps. He shook the vial, and Sandy recognized the familiar rattle of the drug.

“That’s heavy shit that can earn you heavy time,” he cautioned.

“I know. A little side action, if done safely, boosts the bank account.”

Logan crossed the threshold and put his hands on a bicycle leaning up against a light post. Despite his youth, Logan already had enough DWIs that the state had taken away his license. He couldn’t reapply until 2040.

Sandy watched the kid cycle away. Even though he knew that the home attracted the scum of the earth, including former private eyes, he still marveled at the sheer amount of dope fiends and dealers who populated his workplace. Even the sunshiners, who handled the material and their grieving families, were no better than the nighttime ghouls, most of whom couldn’t get another job, even if they had cleaner records.

But corpse thief? Sandy couldn’t believe it. Even as weird and off-putting as Peyton was, the old man had a hard time believing the rumors. Disposable parts weren’t that good anyway—defective, overly marked up, or incorrectly cut. Not much use for such offal, Sandy thought.

So, what was the kid doing?

She recognized him immediately, the obscure dissident author, as she entered the downtown Atlanta restaurant. As if moved by some delicately wired inner programming, he looked up from his menu in her direction at exactly the moment when she was taking him in for the first time, and their eyes met.

Brittany smiled, then waved somewhat awkwardly; she endured a nearly debilitating rush of adrenaline as, seeing her, he stood and doffed his hat, adopting the manners of a gentleman in an old movie chivalrously observing the customs of a bygone day.

As she approached, he spoke first, muttering her name warmly. They shook hands, and she apologized for being late, since things at the conference had been so hectic.

“Are the antifa creeps doing their usual thing?” he asked as she sat across from him in a quite intimate booth in the back corner of the restaurant.

“They’re there, and all the blue- and green-haired girls, too. One of them called me a ‘Nazi whore,’ but I just smiled at her, sweet as can be, and said, doing my best imitation of a Southern belle, told her, ‘Bless your heart!’ Then she spat at me, but luckily I dodged it…”

“Nice reflexes!” he observed admiringly. She became even more aware of how tight the booth was in this crowded restaurant; it seemed, in fact, as if she were practically sitting in his lap.

“Do the police at least have them under control?” he asked.

“For the most part, yeah. It was just that one who went through, but after the spitting thing, they grabbed her and cuffed her… Then she began screaming at them, “All cops are bastards, all cops are bastards!”

“I’m glad they aren’t allowing those maniacs to run roughshod, as they did at Charlottesville,” he muttered. “That was truly insane.”

She recalled reading his account of that ill-fated event, nodded solemnly, and was about to say something when their waitress arrived to take their drink orders. He asked for a Coke, and she for a mocha latte. Once she left, he smirked, “White nationalist Barbie loves her gourmet coffee, eh!”

It was a reference to a satirical piece a hostile online venue had written about her a couple of years ago. She nodded, impressed with, and flattered by, his memory.

“A ‘Nazi’ obviously. How could I be otherwise? Attendee of a ‘trad wife’ conference. Married to a notorious Austrian nationalist.”

“Left your own country behind, you evil trollop,” he teased. Then his tone changed. “How does it feel to be back in your own country?”

“It’s been wonderful,” Brittany admitted. “Of course, Vienna is beautiful, but home will always be home. No matter how well I learn to speak German, in my soul I will always be an American.”

She found herself remembering the homecoming with her parents a few days ago, and began choking up a little, then felt temporarily mortified at having lost her composure in front of him. Sensing her distress, he reached out, touched her hand very delicately, then removed it again. His touch both calmed and slightly thrilled her.

“I can only imagine, of course,” he said. “I’ve got kids of my own, though they’re both grown, unlike yours. And even though I’m not with their mother anymore, there’s still a connection to them and to her and to the rest of my extended family. To have your husband and children in one place, and your ancestors in another…”

“The things you do for love,” she muttered.

“For love of your husband, for love of your children, for love of your people,” he stated. You’ve made a lot of sacrifices, my dear.”

There followed a moment of silence, in which it seemed that both interlocutors wished to say something, but neither could bring himself or herself to do so. As if by providential design, the waitress chose that moment to bring them their drinks and ask if they were ready to order. She opted for a Caesar salad, while he requested a braised chicken filet sandwich with chips.

She sighed.

“I haven’t told Gunther about our correspondence.” It sounded like a confession.

“Why not?” he asked.

She studied his face. This was the first time the two of them had actually laid eyes on one another. He was a good deal older than her. Though she didn’t know his exact age, she reckoned that he could have been anywhere from his late 40s to perhaps his mid-50s. Brittany, however, had just turned 32. A man his age ought to know what a woman meant when she dared to make such an admission to him. Yet his somewhat weathered face and deep-set green eyes betrayed only earnest inquisitiveness.

“I am loyal to my husband,” she said. “I will always be loyal to him.”

He nodded. “As you should be.”

There came another pregnant pause. Brittany sipped her coffee and said, “Your writings have had… an effect on me. For some reason, they make me feel… very seen. When I read your work, it seems to me that you are letting me know that…” She pondered, then ventured to continue. “I don’t know; your words make me feel that I’m not alone, I guess. Does that make any sense at all?”

He nodded. “Thank you, it’s very pleasing to hear that from you. I’ve been an admirer of yours for a while.”

Brittany felt herself blushing. His words seemed to caress her intimately, even as they stopped short of expressing anything untoward.

“I sent you that first email because I felt I just had to get in touch with you… I do read a lot, but in your case, I felt somehow summoned. It was like you were calling my name, even though, of course, you weren’t.”

“How did you even hear about me?” he asked. “I’m really quite a little-known author.”

He said this last with a self-deprecation bordering, she noticed, on bitterness. It was the first moment that he had tipped his hand, rendered himself vulnerable in a way, though she sensed such hadn’t been his intention.

“You are still very well known in certain circles,” she told him, trying to reassure him without coming across as patronizing. “Somehow I discovered you, and the rest is history.”

“The rest?” he asked.

“I am a changed woman,” she heard herself saying. Shut up, stop talking that way; you’re sounding like some kind of unhinged fangirl, she thought. Yet her mind was unable to restrain her tongue. “I don’t typically read material like yours. I don’t like bleak fiction about desperate people who do really bad things. But with your stories, it’s like you reach me where I almost don’t even want to be reached… You put things on display that I would rather not see… So you see, don’t you, how my husband might misunderstand my penchant for your fare?”

She pronounced “penchant” in the French manner; it was an affectation that she had developed since living in Europe, but she hoped it didn’t sound pretentious, or worse, like she was trying to be “sexy” or alluring to him. But nothing on his face registered any such apprehension. Instead, he looked thoughtful and maybe a bit confused.

“As I told you, it’s quite flattering to hear what you are telling me now,” he finally said. “And, not to be needlessly modest, but I would scarcely have thought of you as being within the demographic of my readership if I can be said to have one. As for your husband’s thoughts on the matter…”

Brittany was eager to hear how he would complete that sentence, but at that moment, something abruptly shifted in the general atmosphere of the restaurant. The author’s face suddenly looked past her with vigilant alertness, and the noisy din that had buzzed around them over the last few minutes, causing each of them to have to speak loudly to be heard by the other, in spite of the proximity of their bodies in this tiny booth, at once ceased. An ominous hush took hold in its place, peppered by a smattering of astonished gasps.

“Get down,” he emphatically urged her, and instantly, as if expecting this moment, she ducked her head and leaped under the table, just in time to hear a voice scream out, “Hey, fascist cunt!”

There followed a high-pitched scream and the sickening sound of a massive bodily collision. The gasps in the room had turned to cries and screams of alarm. The author’s voice was now saying, with an untrammeled fierceness, “Had enough, you fucker? Had enough?” She dared to look up and saw that a young person of indeterminate gender was being forcibly restrained by her lunch companion, who had shaken a bladed weapon out of the attacker’s hand. The dagger, long and serrated, lay on the floor while the attacker squirmed and thrashed under the author’s grip.

His face (she saw now that it was a man, or at least a biological male, though he wore rouge and lipstick) was bright red and engorged with murderous rage; he was flailing and his spittle-flecked lips screamed barely discernible vulgarities at the author who, with some effort, held him pinned to the floor. Presently, two other men rushed to help him restrain the still viciously resistant supine individual, who was now uttering disgusting blasphemies in an oddly guttural voice that barely even sounded human.

Brittany found herself reseated in the booth, staring with numbed shock at the flailing, babbling man being held down determinedly by two men, one of whom was hollering for the police to be called. She saw the author, her lunch companion, now freed from his task of restraining the lunatic, stagger back slightly, take the attacker’s discarded weapon in hand, and examine it, somewhat dazedly. He held it up to her, and she could discern a “trans” pride flag emblazoned on its hilt.

Later, the police arrived and forcibly dragged away the assailant, who kept bawling out a peroration that could only occasionally be understood. During semi-lucid moments, he boasted of how he “couldn’t be stopped,” and declared that “every last one of you Nazis, from Charlie Kirk on down, will die in a sea of blood; my comrades and I will see to that!” Then he lapsed into some strange alien or infernal tongue that none could possibly decode, nor wish to, in that same disconcertingly inhuman guttural voice.

A policeman spoke to the two of them to get their witness accounts. Brittany told him the truth: that she had seen nothing prior to her lunch companion telling her to duck, then hearing the resultant melee play out, which crouched furtively beneath the table.

The author told the cop that he saw the young man enter the restaurant, recognized that he looked like some kind of “antifa” type of character by his manner of dress: militant T-shirt depicting a burning swastika flag, under the heading PUNCH A NAZI FOR SATAN TODAY!, along with a “pride” lapel sewn onto one sleeve and the phrase “NERF TERFS” emblazoned on the other. In addition, a surgical face mask had been strapped across his mouth and nose, effectively covering his face.

Then he saw the same man, his mask now pulled down, making a beeline towards their booth, attempting to be stealthy but utterly failing, in part because he was somewhat rotund and moved clumsily, and in part because he was holding something behind his back in his right hand, which the author was sure must be a weapon.

It was at that moment, he told the policeman, that instinct kicked in. He instructed Brittany to duck and rise to confront the attacker, who, after seeing him take to his feet, “screamed a kind of absurd war whoop,” and lengthening his stride, was soon upon him, brandishing what had been revealed as a wickedly long knife.

“Clearly, Brittany was his target, and I was in his way,” he said.

The author had absolutely no experience with fighting, but something told him to go low, so he dove hard at the attacker’s knees, which caused him to lose his balance; however, the man, with his considerable girth, then toppled awkwardly on top of him. After a scuffle on the floor, the author managed, with some struggle, to gain the upper hand (the attacker was fat but not particularly strong or nimble), whereupon he pinned the assailant down and straddled him—the force of the young man’s fall had knocked the weapon out of his hands and caused it to skip out of his reach.

“I tried to keep him down, but he kept fighting my grip, and looking into his contorted face as he hollered absolutely hateful things up at me, and kept trying to push away from me with his weighty frame, so by the time those two other guys ran over to help, I was totally exhausted,” he said. Then he showed the policeman the dagger with the “trans” insignia, which was promptly confiscated for evidence.

Neither Brittany nor the author found himself terribly hungry after enduring this unforeseen ordeal, so both of them took their meals to go, and left the restaurant in a kind of daze.

Neither spoke for a time; they just walked together. Fortuitously, the restaurant where they’d met was at the edge of a small park, where soon a bench stood under the afternoon shade provided by two newly-blooming dogwood trees growing side by side.

They sat, as if by commonly reached accord, though neither had spoken a word.

“Well… welcome to Atlanta,” he said, after a long moment, in an effort at a witticism to lighten the mood. Brittany managed a smile and shook her head ruefully.

“That guy was honestly trying to kill me, wasn’t he?” she asked, still bewildered.

“I wouldn’t ‘assume his gender’… but yeah.”

“You don’t possibly have a cigarette on you, do you?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t smoke.”

“I don’t either, not for almost ten years… but if ever there were a day to relapse…”

They sat again in silence for a long moment. Brittany had never been to the South in springtime before, and the cool, temperate day, spiced by a scent of magnolias carried in a cool gust of wind, brought a welcome, soothing balm to her frazzled nerves.

“I should say thank you for saving my life. So, thank you,” she told him earnestly.

“Ah, don’t mention it. That fat tranny nearly took me out, too…”

Then she became somber again.

“It’s getting worse, isn’t it? I mean, me? I’m not even that well-known. And I’ve been trying to keep a lower profile lately…”

“Hey, you and I were both on the ‘ADL’s most naughty people’ list, remember? But I guess I’m a bit less famous, and certainly less photogenic.”

She shook her head, attempting, unsuccessfully, to ward off tears.

“I feel so helpless,” she said. “I don’t like to be that way. I just want to be a good wife and a good mother. I thought I had retired from being a media personality. But my past follows me wherever I go, it seems.”

“Those people, our enemies, they hold grudges. They don’t forget,” he pronounced. “We knew the deal when we walked into this fight. We knew what the stakes were. I’m afraid there’s no ‘retirement’ possible.”

“Not until we reach our eternal reward,” Brittany answered.

“You’re still young; you’ve got a lot of life to live,” he told her. “Don’t let these maniacs deter you. The cause for which you fight is correct, good, and proper. Go back to your new home, live rightly, and trust God. He works in his own time, as I’m sure you know, and all things ultimately are drawn into accord with his will. It’s an inevitability. Looked at a certain way, it’s already happened. We would be able to see that if we could see as God sees, and as the saints see, from the perspective of Heaven.”

At the same time that she heard his words of encouragement, Brittany realized that she was simultaneously speaking them to herself from within the depths of her own soul. It was a rare and extraordinary moment, one in which two minds apprehend identical thoughts together, in unison, something like a shared telepathy, together with the mind of the Divine.

The fragrant Dixie wind gusted again, sending the dark locks of Brittany’s hair scattering into her face. The wind bloweth where it listeth, she recited to herself, eyes closed.

Then she felt a warm hand gently resetting her tresses, tucking them behind her ears. She opened her eyes and gazed into his. This time, oddly enough, they appeared to be azure blue; she could have sworn earlier, when she scrutinized his face in the little booth of that restaurant, that his eyes had then shown themselves to be emerald green.

“Ready?” he asked, touching her cheek tenderly, sopping up the little tears that she had wept.

She nodded. They rose in unison and walked together: out of the little bucolic patch of the city park, back onto the streets of Atlanta, toward the downtown hotel that was hosting her conference.

Brittany now felt remarkably calm. She knew that the peace of mind which now pleasantly engulfed her wouldn’t last forever, yet she also sensed, with something close to certainty, that her spirit would be sustained in the years to come, through numerous tribulations, so long as she remained faithful.

The pair paused before the entrance to the venue. The sidewalk traffic had thinned out; the very air seemed to wait expectantly as the “trad wife” influencer and the obscure dissident author faced one another a final time.

“You’ll be in my prayers every day,” she told him, with marked conviction.

“And you’ll be in mine,” he answered, matching the fervor of her tone.

They embraced for the briefest of moments, just long enough for Brittany to feel the sinews of his chest, a sensation that made her recall her father. Then she turned and entered the swinging door hotel, leaving him behind.

She turned around to wave at him one last time, but saw that he was already walking briskly away, planting his hat back onto his bare head and not looking back.

The past few weeks for Zoro the Purple Zombie have been very interesting. To prove he didn’t commit the crime for which he had been incarcerated, he had escaped prison by feigning his own demise. Doctors Malinsky and Hale took Zoro’s body for their new experiment – a machine that could revive the deceased. Doctor Kimberly Hale wished to use the device to prolong life. However, Malinsky’s intentions were more nefarious. He wanted to rule the living and the dead!

Hale was shot by Malinsky when he learned of his colleague’s evil plans. Zoro, believed to be a bulletproof zombie, strangled Malinsky and those who backed his vicious plot. Police thought Zoro had murdered Doctor Hale, and he was sentenced to the electric chair. Zoro, however, did not meet his end when the switch had been thrown. His skin turned purple, from which his new identity – the Purple Zombie – was born.

Doctor Hale, having only been injured by Malinsky’s bullet, had taken Zoro into his custody. Since then, Hale and the Purple Zombie stopped notorious gang leader Joe Caroza and a mechanical skeleton. The skeleton’s creator, Chico, would have been killed by Zoro had Kim Hale not intervened. Hale and Zoro found more radio-controlled bone men in Chico’s home when they brought him there. Chico revealed their true purpose to Hale and the Purple Zombie.

A death ray had been wreaking havoc all over Europe, prompting Chico to create his mechanical skeleton army. Hale leaves Zoro to protect Chico, only to find that they had gone to destroy the weapon and end its creators’ tyranny. Doctor Hale followed them, and Zoro used the death ray on the dictator who made it. Chico’s skeletons were then given a hero’s burial. Upon flying home, the plane carrying Chico, Kim Hale,, and the Purple Zombie was forced to land in front of Professor Roy Elton’s laboratory.

Elton, whose gravitational beam had grounded their aircraft, had seen what Zoro, Chico, and Hale had done in Europe and needed their aid to perfect his time machine. However, Hale and Zoro are accidentally sent to ancient Rome after Chico falls on the device’s controls. Professor Elton and Chico worked tirelessly on the time machine. Yet, an overloaded wire forces Chico to sacrifice himself for the only two people who were kind to him.

Chico’s death was not in vain. Zoro the Purple Zombie and Doctor Kimberly Hale had returned to Professor Roy Elton’s laboratory. In the days since their voyages through the temporal currents, Zoro had been cleared of the crime of which he had been originally wrongfully accused. The actual perpetrator had confessed to the police.

On a more worldly scale, Pearl Harbor had been attacked by Japanese forces on December 7, 1941. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had declared that the United States would fight. Feeling he should do his part, Zoro had enlisted in the army. Professor Elton and Doctor Hale, meanwhile, had been called upon to create explosives, weapons, and munitions for the government.

Before going to Camp Claremont, where he, Kim Hale, and Roy Elton were to be stationed, Zoro walked the hallowed halls of the state penitentiary’s death house. The man who had framed him had requested to see him one last time before walking the last mile. Zoro looked at him. He was different from the hulking bruiser he had known from his days of living in Irma McGee’s Boarding House. This man in the cell before him was a frail, almost skeletal scarecrow. His head was shaven, and his eyes were sunken in. Sleep and food seemed as alien to him as one of those flying saucers Zoro had read about in science fiction magazines.

Zoro asked, “Why did you ask to see me, John Darrow?”

Darrow’s voice cracked and quivered when he spoke. It was unclear whether it was a fear of death, a fear of Zoro, or a fear of his reasons for wanting to see the Purple Zombie. “I needed to see you before walking the last mile. I couldn’t live with what I did to Mrs. McGee and you. That’s why I confessed to killing her. I can’t get forgiveness from Mrs. McGee, at least on this side of the fence, but I wanted to know if I could get it from you. I’ll need it if I’m going to meet my maker.”

“You murdered a good woman and framed me for your crime. Yet, you ask for my forgiveness?”

“Yeah, I know I don’t deserve it, man.”

“That is true, John Darrow. I spent my time in and out of prison wanting revenge for being framed. Looking at the state you’re currently in shows me that my vendetta has been achieved. I’m not sure if that means a higher power watches over us all or if the adage ‘What goes around comes around’ is true. I do know that I have officially closed the book on my former life as of today. The man you knew is no more. Now, Zoro the Purple Zombie stands in his place.”

“Does that mean you forgive me?”

“If Mrs. McGee were here, she’d want me to forgive you. She’d call it ‘Being the better man’. I do forgive you, John Darrow. That does not mean I’ve forgotten what you’ve done to her and me. The memory of your actions is what will help me make certain no more innocent lives are taken or ruined by crimes such as yours.”

“That’s good enough for me, man.” A priest entered the cell to perform the Last Rites. Zoro turned to leave.

“Hey,” Darrow called, “If we meet in another life, I’ll treat Mrs. McGee and you better.”

Zoro did not respond, for he didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t sure if he believed Darrow or if there was another life after this one. Granted, the line between life and death, the known and the unknown, the natural and the supernatural had been blurred lately because of what he had experienced and learned with Kim Hale. Yet, Zoro could not find the right words to say to Darrow. Plus, he wasn’t sure if Darrow would think they were sincere.

The priest and Darrow walked out of the cell. They traveled the last mile to the electric chair in the opposite direction of Zoro’s destination. Warden John Isabella escorted him out of the penitentiary. A tall bald man in his sixties, Isabella looked sheepishly at Zoro.

“I wish to give you my sincerest of apologies,” Isabella said to Zoro as they stood in the rain.

“You were a man doing your job,” the Purple Zombie said. “I bear no ill will.”

“But I believed you murdered McGee.”

“Darrow wanted everyone to believe that I was responsible for his crime. It is he who had been the focus of my anger, but as I told him, I’ve forgiven him.”

“You’re a better man than I would have been had I been in your position, Private Zoro. Take care of yourself.”

“And you do the same, warden.”

Zoro left the penitentiary. The bus to Camp Claremont had stopped as the main gate closed behind him. Upon his arrival, Zoro was escorted to the newly commissioned laboratory of Professor Elton and Doctor Hale. Zoro had agreed to let his two scientist friends examine him. Hale himself had not had a chance to study the reasons for Zoro’s purple skin, invulnerability, and superhuman strength until this very moment. Zoro lay upon a table while Elton and Hale unsuccessfully attempted to take samples from him. Even Elton’s diamond-tipped scalpel could not cut Zoro’s impenetrable skin.

“I’m sorry, Professor Elton,” Zoro said as the scalpel’s blade broke on contact with Zoro’s arm.

“Think nothing of it, my boy,” Professor Elton replied in a surprisingly pleased tone. “In fact, I think you may have inadvertently helped our research in your case.”

“And I think I see what went wrong when Doctor Malinsky and I used the Resurrection Invention, as I recently named it, on your body,” Hale interjected. “Malinsky changed some calculations here and there without my knowledge. I recognize his handwriting on some of my notes.”

Elton asked, “It has nothing to do with Zoro being alive instead of dead?”

“The formula would have prolonged his life anyway,” Hale replied. “It also enhanced Zoro’s strength to a superhuman level. The fact that Malinsky wanted an army of the undead is the factor. His figures didn’t account for Zoro’s living tissue. A, for lack of a better term, mutated rigor mortis occurred in Zoro. However, instead of stiffening his body, it made his skin invulnerable. As the days progressed, that invulnerability increased.”

“What about his purple skin color?”

“That could be due to the electric chair’s current reacting to the invention’s formula.”

“I did feel different after the electricity coursed through my body, Kim,” Zoro said. “I felt an energy I had never experienced in my entire life. It was like I was being changed from within. Having never been electrocuted before, I really can’t tell you anything more than that.”

“That actually helps me out a lot, Zoro. You may have just proved my theory.”

“Anything to help, my friend.”

Elton looked at the clock on the wall. He, Kim, and Zoro were due to meet with General Thomas Stern in his office in twenty minutes. They were to discuss their newly created Explosive X, and Zoro was to be assigned a special mission. The details of that would be revealed only by General Stern.

Professor Elton, Doctor Hale, and Zoro met General Stern in his office and followed him into an adjacent briefing room. Stern was a medium-built man in his middle fifties. His black mustache and hair were peppered with flecks of gray. The quartet moved in single file to enter. Three file folders were placed on a polished oak table in front of three chairs. Zoro, Hale, and Elton sat down while General Stern walked to a podium in front of a movie projector’s screen. Stern’s assistant, Major Jane Duffy, a tall, dark-haired woman with glasses, prepared a film for viewing. She then pulled down the room’s shades, locked the door, and checked for any unauthorized recording equipment.

Elton, Hale, and Zoro opened their file folders when ordered to do so by General Stern. The general cleared his throat and said, “What I’m about to share with you is completely confidential. For reasons of national security, you are not to discuss anything said in this room. Do I make myself clear, gentlemen?”

“Yes, sir,” Zoro, Roy, and Kim replied in unison.

“I looked over the notes on the Explosive X spheres you two have created,” Stern said to Elton and Hale. “They will be field tested on Private Zoro’s first mission. Major Duffy, if you wouldn’t mind, could you turn off the lights in here?”

Major Duffy turned off the lights and turned on the film projector. The image of a tall, fearsome man in horn-rimmed glasses and a lab coat appeared. Both sides of his face were scarred from his forehead to his cheeks. The visage of this man brought a chill to Professor Elton and Doctor Hale. Zoro, however, was not shocked at all.

“This is Doctor Traugott Teufel,” General Stern said while pointing to the image. “He is considered one of Hitler’s most brilliant scientists. There are rumors that Mengele learned from him, and that even the Führer fears him. All hearsay, however. What is not hearsay is that he’s been attempting to create an army of zombies under his control.”

“Much like Malinsky tried with my invention,” Hale interjected.

“We recently learned Malinsky was Teufel’s apprentice,” General Stern added. “He had contacted German backers who were agents of Doctor Teufel days before beginning work with you on the experiment that involved Private Zoro here. Once we got wind of what the Purple Zombie, as Zoro has been codenamed, had accomplished after you changed him, it became a top priority to recruit him and you, Doctor Hale. Professor Elton’s scientific knowledge was also integral for us. Zoro’s enlistment in the army provided us with the means to recruit you both for arms, explosives, munitions, and other inventions vital to our war efforts.”

“Now,” Stern continued, “Under normal conditions, Zoro would have to go through proper channels, go on certain missions, and show his commanding officers what he can do on the battlefield. However, these are special circumstances. You’ll see shortly as Doctor Teufel experiments on a corpse.”

Kim asked, “How was this film obtained, General Stern, sir?”

“Major Duffy?”

“One of our operatives with the Third Reich smuggled it to us a few days ago. He gave it to me personally, and I reported this finding to General Stern,” Major Duffy replied while the filmed presentation continued.

Doctor Teufel injected a male cadaver with a serum. The subject had torn his restraints and nearly strangled Teufel. A soldier behind the scientist shot the undead man in the head. Both Major Duffy and General Stern winced at the sight. Roy, Kim, and Zoro, while looking shocked, did not turn away. Zoro especially felt it was important to have as much information as possible, no matter how gruesome or cruel it may be. It would help him know every detail necessary for his missions.

It wasn’t that Zoro didn’t feel anything for the poor, dead man’s plight. All the emotions attached to witnessing such an atrocity, particularly sadness, grief, and a fiery rage, brimmed and boiled within him like water in a tea kettle on a lit stove. He just felt he should keep them in check. He felt that way when he learned of Doctor Malinsky’s plans to create a zombie army. When he lost control of them, they led him to kill Malinsky’s backers and the agents who worked for them. His rage had gotten the better of him.

Did Malinsky and his allies need to be stopped? Yes, they did, but Zoro could have found another way to do so. Granted, he may not have had a choice, much like when he used the European dictator’s death ray against him. He never examined all the options available to him with Malinsky. This proved that sometimes there was no other option. Perhaps that would have been the case with Malinsky had Zoro taken time to ponder such a thing.

“As you can see,” General Stern said, bringing Zoro back to the present, “Doctor Teufel is closer to succeeding in his goal of creating an army of zombies. Time is of the essence. Professor Elton and Doctor Kim, we need your Explosive X to combat these undead creatures.”

“Whatever you need is yours, sir,” Elton responded.

“Private Zoro,” General Stern continued, “After reading reports of how you handled that death ray, the federal government feels you would be best suited to command a special task force to combat such unusual creatures and supernatural forces. Therefore, effective immediately, you shall be promoted to captain.”

“General Stern, sir,” Zoro said in a surprised tone, “While I will fight for the Allies in every way, is it not too soon for a promotion?”

“My superiors at the Pentagon don’t think so, my boy,” General Stern replied. “Tomorrow morning at 0900, you’ll meet the soldiers we have selected for you. After that, you and they will infiltrate enemy lines to stop Doctor Teufel’s undead army.”

“I will do my best to be worthy of the rank you have given me, sir.”

“I have no doubt about that, my boy. Congratulations, Captain Zoro.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Zoro shook General Stern’s hand after the gold bars were placed on his uniform’s collar. Zoro saluted the general, who returned the gesture.

“Good luck, Captain Zoro,” General Stern said, “I know you will bring us closer to victory over the Nazis.”

“Again, thank you, sir.”

“My pleasure, son.” General Stern looked at Elton and Hale. “Dismissed.”

With that, Zoro, Kim, and Roy saluted General Stern and left the briefing room. As evening gave way to night, Zoro was wide awake. Repose had especially been difficult for him since Kim and Malinsky’s experiments. Kim theorized that parts of Zoro’s brain that were dormant during sleep or rest periods were incredibly active after exposure to his invention. The current from the electric chair afterward had made them more awake than before, which is why Zoro had constant insomnia.

Zoro used his superhuman strength to move equipment and supplies for Kim and Roy. While doing this, he noticed that he wasn’t the only night owl. The two scientists worked tirelessly to improve their formula for Explosive X. Their previous concoction had proven unstable, leaving a laboratory full of debris and destroyed machinery. Clean-up efforts had taken quite a few hours.

The rest of the night consisted of putting the Explosive X chemical mixture into black spheres that shone in the laboratory lights. The Purple Zombie guarded the nodules and re-read the folder from the meeting with General Stern. He did these things until the time came to meet the soldiers under his command. He met General Stern as he walked down the corridor. He was also heading for the briefing room where Zoro’s troops were to be. Zoro saluted the general.

“Good morning, Captain,” General Stern said with a cordial smile while returning the salute.

“Good morning, sir,” Zoro replied as they walked to the briefing room.

“Are you ready to meet your new team, Captain Zoro?”

“Yes, sir,” Zoro said with a glint of curiosity in his eyes.

“Before we enter the briefing room,” General Stern added, “I feel I must advise you that this squad you’ll command consists of some very special soldiers.”

“Yes, I read the file from our meeting three times.”

General Stern looked astonished. “Three times?! I wrote the thing, and I could barely get through one reading of it.”

“I wanted to be well informed, sir.”

Stern chuckled as he and Zoro entered the briefing room. Six soldiers – three men and three women – sat at the rectangular table. An African American male was arm wrestling a burly red-haired man. The former looked like a strong wind would make him fly away. Yet, the latter, in spite of his height and weight, could not move his opponent’s arm one single inch.

“Come on, Stonewall,” a medium-built man with his dark hair in a standard military haircut said to the African American. “I got twenty bucks riding on you beating this Irish pork roast!”

The trio of women, an African American, an olive-skinned athletic type with dark hair, and an extremely tall blonde, were talking among themselves and laughing at the men.

“My brother is always showing off,” the African American woman said.

“Let’s hope he and Thunderbolt don’t destroy the briefing room in the process, Torchsong,” the blonde woman said. “Remember what happened last time?”

The dark-haired one spoke. “All six of us had to clean the entire base for a week.”

General Stern and Zoro moved closer to the table. The Purple Zombie noticed that the young man’s skin had a rocky texture. Thunderbolt’s eyes emitted tiny bolts of electricity as he unsuccessfully attempted to move his arm. Stern smiled. He knew soldiers often did such things to pass the time while waiting for their commanders to arrive. He had even been known to horse around on occasion before rising in the ranks of the army.

“Atten-SHUN!,” Stern said in a strongly commanding voice. The men and women stood stiffly at attention upon hearing him. The general let out a low-pitched laugh.

Stonewall was the first to speak. “Sorry, sir,” He said, “The team and I needed something to do while waiting.”

“No harm done, sergeant,” Stern turned to Zoro. “Ladies and Gentlemen, and I use that term loosely in Thunderbolt’s case, allow me to introduce your new captain.”

Stonewall was the first to approach Zoro. “I’m Stonewall. You’re that Purple Zombie guy, aren’t you? His arm and hand changed back to their fleshy state. He shook Zoro’s hand. “I read about what you did to Joe Caroza in the camp newspaper. That scum killed my father.”

“I’m so sorry about your father, Stonewall.”

“It’s okay, sir. He had a good life and a family that loved him. That’s all anyone could ask for.”

“I suppose you’re right.”

Zoro went around the room as General Stern introduced each person and described their individual superpowers. Sergeant Edward Jones’ skin could turn to stone, making it impenetrable, hence the name Stonewall. In his rock form, he became immovable, and his fingers could lengthen and become weapons used to cut and impale enemies. His twin sister, Private Emma Jones, could create fire with her voice and control its direction and intensity.

Private Daniel O’Grady could absorb electricity and emit it as Thunderbolt. Vincent “Vinnie” Torelli, the Brooklyn native, could change his shape and disguise himself as anyone or anything. He simply called himself Guise. The olive-skinned Private Maria Thomas could change into fog and move air and clouds, creating it to use as a veil to move herself and those around her. In fact, her codename was Veil. The tall blonde Sergeant Annie Porter could telepathically enter a person’s mind to control them. She used the moniker, Puppeteer. Zoro looked at her. He noticed her eyes were an eerie silver color.

The Purple Zombie looked over the entire team. He liked what he saw when each person demonstrated their superhuman abilities. Puppeteer had taken control of Thunderbolt with his permission. He thereby used his power to strike a target on a rifle range just outside the briefing room. Torchsong sang a note whose small fire lit General Stern’s pipe. Guise changed himself into Zoro, much to the Purple Zombie’s delight and surprise. Veil created a fog as thick as pea soup in the briefing room. This made it impossible for anyone to see. Stonewall placed Zoro in a rocky grip from which he couldn’t break free.

“You all have very impressive abilities,” Zoro said. “I look forward to working with you.”

“We call ourselves the Uncanny Commandos, Captain Zoro, sir,” Stonewall said.

“I like that name, Sergeant Stonewall.”

“Our previous captain gave us that name. He was killed by a Nazi monster. We managed to kill it before it could attack a village of innocent people.”

“Now that we’ve got the introductions and pleasantries out of the way,” General Stern said, “Let’s talk about your first mission under Captain Zoro’s command.”

Stern called Major Duffy into the briefing room, showed the same film he had on Doctor Teufel, and passed file folders to the Uncanny Commandos before continuing. “Simply put, you are to infiltrate enemy lines and prevent Doctor Traugott Teufel and whatever monstrosities he’s created from attacking Allied forces by any means necessary. Should any of you be captured, the United States government will deny your existence.”

“With all due respect, sir,” Thunderbolt said, “How come nobody’s roasted this German turkey yet?”

“All attempts at killing Doctor Teufel have ended with the soldier assigned disappearing in unknown circumstances. It is our theory that Teufel uses them for his experiments.”

This sent a shudder of cold fear through the team. Even Zoro was phased by this.

“We’ve all been put through the wringer,” Torchsong said to Zoro. “We all agreed to be a part of the Operation Super Army program after Roosevelt declared war. The pain we went through was rough. Some involved didn’t even survive that, but if it meant making the world safe for our friends and family, that’s all that really mattered.”

“I suppose you’re right, Torchsong. I just wonder how such evils live.”

“We all do, captain. That’s why the Uncanny Commandos fight them.”

“According to our undercover agents,” General Stern continued, “Doctor Teufel’s laboratory is located just outside the German village of Flagendorf. Its citizens are too afraid of Teufel to do anything. A group of German rebels has agreed to fly the Uncanny Commandos there under the guise of a cargo plane. The cover of night and Veil’s fogging ability will hide you all. Once you have landed, there will be no contact with you whatsoever. You all leave in an hour when our pilot in the resistance arrives. Now, if there are no questions, I bid you all Godspeed.”

Zoro took the time to get to know the people under his new command. He had only led Chico’s mechanical skeletons during the death ray battle. Being with a group of people, even one such as the Uncanny Commandos, was new to him. He felt this was an opportunity to learn all about the rest of the team.

Puppeteer’s husband and father were the scientists who created the Operation Super Army serum. The chemicals reacted differently in each body they were injected into, but the end results were men and women with various types of superhuman abilities. When a German soldier posed as an American in the top-secret project, he gained a gargantuan body and superhuman strength. He had broken the necks of the entire staff, including Puppeteer’s family. In a fit of anger, she used her powers to control the Nazi spy and make his brain hemorrhage.

Veil and Guise lived on the streets and had no family before joining Operation Super Army and the Uncanny Commandos. Thunderbolt’s wife, Edith, and son Richard are waiting for him to come home to Dawn Island, Ireland, after the war ends. He learned of his powers when he visited them on Edith’s birthday last month. Surprisingly enough, they were not afraid and accepted them. Richard even commented that Thunderbolt was like the superheroes he saw in comic books. He let out a boisterous laugh when he heard that and said, “You may be right, lad.”

Those who received the Operation Super Army serum had left the project’s facility and joined various military groups to fight the Axis. Captain Steven Hodge, a man who could fly and shoot lasers from his eyes, led a group consisting of Stonewall, Torchsong Thunderbolt, Puppeteer, Veil, and Guise on various secret missions until his death some weeks ago.

While Zoro identified most with Veil and Guise, he found the entire group of Uncanny Commandos to be a joy to be around. He knew he could count on them to perform their tasks accurately during their upcoming mission. He knew this upon reading their last mission’s report. The Uncanny Commandos were truly a squad upon whom the Purple Zombie could trust.

An hour had passed. The Uncanny Commandos were about to board their airplane when Hale and Elton had given them sacks full of Explosive X nodules before they boarded their airplane.

“You never know if you’ll need these, Zoro,” Kim said.

“We’ve needed bombs for other missions, Cap,” Guise told Zoro. “They came in handy when we rescued Torchsong from some Japanese soldiers.”

“Thank you, Guise, and thank you, too, Kim.”

“Be careful, Uncanny Commandos,” Roy Elton, who was behind Kim, said.

“Don’t worry, Doc,” Guise said, “We’ll come back in one piece and have a drink together before you know it.”

Elton smiled. He liked Guise’s confidence in the mission’s success. The scientist in him had made him a realist, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t hope Guise was right. “I don’t doubt that for a second, my boy,” He said with a chuckle. “Goodbye, commandos.”

As the Uncanny Commandos flew to their destination, they were unaware that their objective, Doctor Traugott Teufel, was working hard on improvements to his army of the undead. He had used notes pilfered from various scientific geniuses, including Hale. Yet, the current additions to his zombie soldiers were his focus.

A dead husband and wife were restrained on a pair of tables. These were modified versions of the same apparatus that Malinsky and Hale had used on Zoro’s body. The man and woman had been prisoners who had perished from starvation in the nearby concentration camp. They were perfect for Doctor Teufel’s needs. He injected the formula into both cadavers. A pair of guards whom Teufel had summoned earlier in that moment entered the lab.

“Hold the bodies down while I work on them,” Doctor Teufel ordered.

The bodies had awakened and snarled with a throaty growl. It took all the guards’ force to hold them down. Doctor Teufel noted an increase in his subjects’ strength as he placed onyx-like collars around their necks. The female had bitten the man who had restrained her. He fell to the floor screaming in excruciating pain. Doctor Teufel laughed gleefully as he witnessed the macabre scene. He regained his composure when he saw the dead man and woman walk around his lab.

The bitten guard’s joints and limbs stiffened, and his movements changed from quick fluidity to rigid shambles. His screams ceased, having been replaced by the same noises as the recently undead couple. Doctor Teufel observed that their eyes and the guard’s eyes were clouded, as if they were visually impaired. He had taken a third collar from a nearby table and somehow, by luck or chance, placed it on the soldier’s neck.

Doctor Teufel ran to his desk. He searched the drawers for the remote control he had put together just days before he had begun this experiment. He found it in the largest of the group in the center. The large, polished silver device fit perfectly in his hand. Teufel chuckled as he pressed the large red button located in its heart. Its antenna emitted a small sound that brought the reanimated prisoners and the transformed German soldier into a frenzy.

The remote’s noise grew stronger, causing the trio of the dead to surround the living guard. He begged and pleaded to no avail. The rotting flesh on their hands grabbed him and tore him apart. The end result was three zombies feeding on the poor man’s limbs while the laughter of a crazed scientist echoed throughout the laboratory. Doctor Traugott Teufel had succeeded in creating warriors in his army of the undead.

All the creatures, particularly the ones taken from the concentration camp, fed on human flesh. The trio in Teufel’s lab still fed upon the dead guard. This was understandable given how underfed the prisoners were. Still, Teufel couldn’t contain his sadistic joy at the sight. He was impatient to show Colonel Von Schtrapp, the camp’s commanding officer, his new soldiers. He also had a plan for Von Schtrapp. He just needed him to come to Teufel’s laboratory.

As if some being were reading his thoughts, Colonel Otto Von Schtrapp entered the laboratory. The tall, husky man in his sixties seemed revolted by the sight of the three zombies feeding on the dismembered guard. He had seen much worse come from Doctor Teufel’s torturous experiments. Yet, they still turned his stomach. He understood why military gossip claimed that Hitler himself feared Doctor Traugott Teufel. Still, the results of Teufel’s work were what had mattered to Von Schtrapp and his superiors. The apprehension and disgust only meant they were effective and would lead Germany to victory.

The male zombie’s teeth barely missed biting Von Schtrapp. He told Teufel to keep his new pets under control. The evil scientist’s reply was to press the red button on the remote control once again. The trio of the living dead went into a dormant state afterward. Von Schtrapp breathed a sigh of relief. He would have hated to be on the receiving end of Doctor Teufel’s scalpel blade. That would be a fate worse than death for him.

Von Schtrapp regained his composure, cleared his throat, and spoke. “I take it from the look on your face, Herr Doctor, you were successful in your endeavors,” He said.

“Quite so, Herr Colonel,” Doctor Teufel replied, “We will be able to use fallen soldiers as the living dead. The collars you see can control them. When the red button on my remote control is pushed, a radio frequency enters their clouded brain, creating an irresistible hunger for human flesh. I have also created a control room behind me that works on the dead on a grander scale with a longer range. When used on the battlefield, my undead army will feed on our adversaries. If we continue to use the prisoners in camp to produce the collars, the creatures should be ready to fight the Allies within days.”

Von Schtrapp, having expected Doctor Teufel to take longer, asked in surprise, “Days?”

“Many of our men were killed recently, Herr Colonel. I have many subjects to choose from in the refrigerated basement below my lab.”

“General Hawkmeyer did not exaggerate about your efficiency, Doctor Teufel.”

“Thank you,” Doctor Teufel said humbly.

Colonel Von Schtrapp turned his back to Doctor Teufel. The scientist giggled madly. A syringe was in his right hand. Von Schtrapp rambled on about something unimportant to Teufel. He plunged the needle into the back of the colonel’s neck. Von Schtrapp screamed and clutched his head. The serum administered by Doctor Teufel burned his insides. He felt a transformation overtake his body. Fluidly moving limbs gave way to stiffness that smelled of decay. Pinkish skin turned to a mixture of brown, black, and gray. His normally commanding voice changed to the croak of someone taking his last breath as he struggled to utter the question that would be his last words among those of the living.

“What... have you... done to me...?”

“Why, Herr Colonel,” Doctor Teufel sneered with delight, “I’ve yet to test my serum on living tissue. You are going to be a soldier in my undead army. All I have to do now is lead you to the lab table behind me and place a collar around your neck.”

Colonel Von Schtrapp wanted to protest, but his voice had disappeared. In its place came groans, moans, cracks, and growls. The commander of the concentration camp, who was considered one of the Führer’s best officers, had now been reduced to a shambling mass of living death. Upon placing the control collar upon Von Schtrapp’s person, Doctor Traugott Teufel cackled maniacally at his success. He could now turn any living being into a zombie soldier. The sky was the limit for him, and his undead army would be his means of conquering the world. Not even the Führer himself will be able to stop him.

As Doctor Teufel gloated and plotted, the cargo plane carrying the Purple Zombie and the Uncanny Commandos had landed in a secluded airfield located in a thickly wooded area some miles south of Flagendorf. Zoro looked at his team. He had gotten to know each person and found them all surprisingly welcoming. They had lost their previous captain. Yet, they understood that it was an awful part of the war. They all only knew Zoro from what newspapers and dossiers had written about him before actually meeting him. However, he was much like them – a person with superhuman gifts looking to make the world better for future generations. That made Captain Zoro a new important member of a special family.

Torchsong and Stonewall helped keep Zoro apprised of previous Uncanny Commandos missions and how the team works. This helped him greatly as everyone prepared for whatever awaited them in Doctor Teufel’s laboratory and the concentration camp where it was located. Zoro had hoped to liberate the prisoners in the process of stopping Teufel. There were men and women in the resistance who could help with that while the Uncanny Commandos fought whatever creatures Teufel had created.

The plan was for resistance fighters to create a diversion while the Uncanny Commandos searched for Doctor Teufel’s laboratory. The rebels and the Uncanny Commandos moved stealthily through the woods. Zoro and his superpowered comrades led the pack in case their abilities were needed to stop Nazis in the area.

“You know, Cap,” Stonewall whispered to Zoro, “I have to admit I’m scared. I get that way every mission.”

“We’re all scared, Stonewall. Fear is a normal emotion. I would worry if someone in this group didn’t feel afraid.”

“I never thought of it that way, sir. Thank you.”

“Anytime, my friend,” Zoro said with a smile.

As the troops neared a secluded area in the east not far from the concentration camp, Zoro gestured to Veil. She created an extra-thick fog bank that served as cover, allowing her and her allies to move unnoticed. Everyone walked silently, all the same. Every precaution had to be taken to avoid detection by the enemy.

Zoro stopped walking suddenly. His enhanced senses allowed him to hear low, throaty growls and moans alongside chewing and crunching noises. He raised his hand to command the others to stop. The new leader of the Uncanny Commandos sniffed the air. The stench of blood and death assaulted his sensitive nostrils. He wondered what the cause was.

A young bearded man named Eldrich asked Zoro, “You smell it, too?”

“Actually, the odor hit me a few kilometers back.”

“It is death, my friend. We are nearing the concentration camp.”

“And the sounds?”

“Those I do not know, but they make my skin crawl.”

“They could be an animal chewing on prey it has hunted,” Zoro tried to reassure Eldrich.

“No animals would dare come near this abattoir, purple one, unless they wanted to be a part of Doctor Teufel’s cruel experiments.”

This made Zoro think about Doctor Teufel. What made this man so sadistic? In general, he didn’t understand humanity’s ability to commit countless atrocities against each other and innocent animals. Such crimes should not go unpunished. That is why Zoro enlisted in the army, to right the wrongs of the Axis Powers.

The noises Zoro had heard before grew stronger. Veil’s fog became less dense in front of him while it camouflaged the rest of the group. Zoro could neither believe his eyes nor contain his horror. What seemed to be a malnourished male prisoner with decaying skin and the smell of rot had knelt before the partially devoured corpse of a Nazi guard. He was chewing on the back of the dead man’s left leg when Zoro’s troops arrived. Eldrich vomited. Zoro continued to look in shock. The Purple Zombie was now face-to-face with an actual flesh-eating zombie.

Stonewall’s index finger became a stone spike and impaled the creature in the forehead. It had fallen over when Thunderbolt noted the onyx-like collar around the zombie’s neck. Guise had pointed out more noise like a colony of those that came from the monster Stonewall, impaled. Zoro’s group had approached the concentration camp’s fence when a violently macabre sight had stung their eyes. The grounds were overrun by those who were reanimated. Doctor Traugott Teufel had succeeded in creating an army of the undead.

Zoro and the Uncanny Commandos observed the scene more closely. Nazi and prisoner alike were transformed into the living dead. A large group of the creatures converged on the main fence. One had managed to tear a hole in it and bite Stonewall. Fortunately, his skin had been in its rock form at the time. The monster had only succeeded in breaking his own jaw. He still tried to attack Stonewall afterward. Thunderbolt had absorbed electricity from the area. He used it to electrocute the zombie who tried to eat Stonewall, along with others in the herd.

“Looks like I owe you another one, Thunderbolt,” Stonewall said.

“Buy me a couple of beers, and we’ll call it even, Boss,” Thunderbolt said with a gleeful laugh.

Some of the undead people remained standing as the Uncanny Commandos and the rebels entered the camp. Those in the resistance used their weapons - pistols, rifles, knives, and even pitchforks – to kill, if that could be an accurate term to use on one who had already been deceased, those who were assaulting them.

“Fight these creatures and find Doctor Teufel,” Eldrich said to Zoro. “I’ll take a few men to search for survivors.”

Zoro, the Uncanny Commandos, and a large group of resistance soldiers did as Eldrich said, while Eldrich himself and a dozen men went in another direction. Puppeteer noticed the onyx collars around the zombies’ necks. However, she had been so focused on them that she didn’t hear one behind her until it had grabbed her arms. Veil had changed her body into a fog as the creature’s mouth opened. The mist she became clogged her prey’s lungs, allowing Guise to stab the zombie in the head before Puppeteer could be bitten. Upon the undead being’s body falling, Veil exited it and returned to her human form.

“Thanks, guys,” Puppeteer said. “I was so taken with looking at their collars, I didn’t pay attention to what went on behind me. Anyhow, I need to enter the mind of one of those poor souls to learn about those collars. I need you two to watch over me while I do that.”

Puppeteer, Veil, and Guise moved fluidly through a small group of zombies. Guise even changed into one of the creatures. He took the lead, which allowed Veil and Puppeteer to move without being bitten or scratched. Guise noted that the undead seemed confused by seeing one of their own with the living.

Puppeteer entered the reanimated mind of an undead woman. She saw the torture and brutality Doctor Teufel had put her through to make her one of his zombie soldiers. The collar was attached to the woman, allowing Teufel to use his remote control. The prisoners in the concentration camp had helped mass-produce the onyx-like devices under duress. Once they were placed on those, Teufel had brought them back from the dead. The madman had used a much larger apparatus to influence the larger groups of his defunct soldiers.

“Help me,” a woman’s voice said to Puppeteer’s mind.

Puppeteer asked, “How?”

“Use me to help stop the one who did this to us all. I know you can do that for me, for us. There’s no way to bring us back, but we can be avenged.”

As Puppeteer considered her options, the Purple Zombie, Torchsong, Stonewall, and Thunderbolt, meanwhile, were cutting, shooting, stabbing, and strangling their way through a much larger herd to get to the building where Eldrich had said Doctor Teufel’s laboratory was located. Puppeteer had used her mental powers to communicate her plan to Zoro and the others.

Her intention was to possess and control one of the zombies while Guise impersonates a Nazi soldier to lead her to Doctor Teufel. They planned to tell the insanely sadistic scientist that the living dead person’s collar was malfunctioning. Hopefully, Doctor Teufel will believe that. It certainly was plausible given the amount of battle and carnage tonight.

“It could work to buy us time to get to Teufel’s lab,” Zoro said. “Go for it, Puppeteer.”

Veil waited outside with Puppeteer’s dormant body for the rest of the Uncanny Commandos to arrive as a disguised Guise, and the female zombie controlled by Puppeteer entered the laboratory. Guise had been able to pass without suspicion. A Nazi soldier bolted the door behind him before joining the battle outside. Guise held one of the creature’s arms while leading her at gunpoint. The two Uncanny Commandos were astounded to find themselves in a control room whose buttons, switches, cables, and monitors filled its entire space. What Guise and Puppeteer saw made their blood turn cold. It was something they had expected. Yet, nothing could have properly prepared them. In a chair at the heart of the chamber sat Doctor Traugott Teufel. His scarred face wore a mad, demented sneer that made him seem like an evil clown.

“Well,” Doctor Teufel hissed, “What do you want, soldier?”

“Stick to the plan, Guise,” Puppeteer said mentally, sensing the fear in her teammate.

Guise regained his composure, “This one wandered away from the ones fighting the rebel pigs, Herr Doctor.”

“In fact,” Doctor Teufel replied, “I didn’t see this naughty girl on the monitors. Her collar must not be working.”

Puppeteer wanted to cringe as Doctor Teufel got closer to her. However, the one whose mind she currently shared gave her the strength to keep her resolve. She figured if someone who had been through such pain and had witnessed all the death and darkest aspects of humanity could continue to be strong, Puppeteer could do the same. She owed that to those Doctor Teufel had harmed and to the other Uncanny Commandos.

“All of the collar’s exterior parts seem to be intact,” Doctor Teufel said upon closer inspection. “Perhaps a wire is loose.” Teufel turned to Guise. “Hold the creature while I check.”

“Puppeteer, look,” Guise said telepathically.

Doctor Teufel was so taken with examining Puppeteer’s host body that he failed to look at one of his monitors. The Uncanny Commandos, led by the Purple Zombie and overrun by a horde of Teufel’s undead army, had stormed the laboratory. While Veil remained behind to guard Puppeteer, the other soldiers used their individual powers to fight the creatures. A lightning stream from Thunderbolt, flames from Torchsong’s voice, and Stonewall’s rocky digits impaling them brought down some of the flesh eaters. Yet, an enraged Zoro’s superhuman strength dealt with the monsters in perhaps the most memorable way.

Body parts snapped, and heads were cracked as Zoro fought with a mixture of anger and pity. He knew that he could have been like them had he not succeeded in stopping Malinsky. Teufel continued his apprentice’s work, making innocent bystanders guinea pigs in his sadistic experiments that violated moral and physical laws. And while he knew the reanimated people had no choice but to fight the Uncanny Commandos and feed on the flesh of their victims, Zoro knew the only humane way to save these poor souls was to kill them. He had felt the telepathic link earlier with Puppeteer and the prisoner she controlled. It confirmed Zoro’s actions were right.

“Hey, Boss,” Thunderbolt said to Zoro, “You think that bolted door in front of us will stop us from getting that rat Teufel?”

Crimson mixed with Zoro’s purple skin as zombie blood congealed on him. He took a deep breath and smiled. Thunderbolt and the other Uncanny Commandos were befuddled by their new captain’s reaction. Massive arm muscles tensed, and a three-foot-thick steel bolted door was torn from its hinges. The Purple Zombie tossed it aside as if it were a rag doll.

“I guess that answers your question, Thunderbolt,” Stonewall said.

“Sure enough, Boss,” Thunderbolt replied with a twinkle in his eye.

“I like how he works,” Torchsong said. The others smiled in agreement.

The Purple Zombie and the Uncanny Commandos rushed into Doctor Teufel’s control room. The deranged scientist was about to open the control collar around the zombie/Puppeteer’s neck. Guise changed into his true form when he saw Zoro and his friends. Teufel looked up in surprise, dropping the tweezers he had been using.

“Step away from them, Teufel!” Zoro yelled.

Puppeteer’s mind returned to her body. She and Veil ran into the control room to join the rest of the team. The female zombie wandered aimlessly as if waiting for a command. Guise stabbed her in the head, knowing it was the only humane way to help her poor soul. Meanwhile, Doctor Teufel turned to face the Uncanny Commandos. He looked at Zoro with a devilish grin, happy and evil.

“I know you,” Teufel said to Zoro. “You’re one of Malinsky’s creations. Before you ask, I have no idea where the others are. Even my spies have their limits.”

One of Malinsky’s experiments? Others? What’s this madman talking about? Zoro thought. He could not focus on those questions right now. He had to stop Doctor Teufel. He had an idea on how to do so. It would be poetic justice for those he subjected to his savage cruelty. He just needed to wait for the right moment. That came when Doctor Teufel laughed insanely.

“What do you think you’re doing with these fools?” Teufel laughed while pointing at the Uncanny Commandos. “You should be working with me to rule the world.”

Thunderbolt and most of the Uncanny Commandos wanted to help Zoro. However, Stonewall had ordered them to stay where they were.

“This looks like it’s personal for Captain Zoro. Let him do what he has to,” Stonewall said.

Zoro lifted Doctor Teufel over his head in an unbreakable, vice-like grip. The scarred German scientist’s protests were loud and echoed throughout the laboratory. Yet, they went unheard and unanswered by Zoro. The Purple Zombie strapped Doctor Teufel to the same table where many concentration camp prisoners had been tortured, mutilated, and murdered. The Uncanny Commandos’ new captain recognized it as a modified version of Kim Hale’s invention. It had been in constant activation in the event that the dead on the battlefield tonight could be used as Doctor Traugott Teufel’s living dead soldiers.

Teufel continued to beg and plead as Zoro took a syringe containing the eerie chemicals from a nearby desk. Teufel had used the needle to revive the dead with the invention table. Zoro’s massive hand injected the evil concoction into Doctor Teufel’s neck. The scientist’s body and limbs stiffened, his skin began to rot and decompose, and his speech patterns were replaced with throaty growls, moans, groans, and roars. Doctor Traugott Teufel was now officially a zombie soldier in his own undead army.

“Boss,” Thunderbolt said to Zoro. “The rebels and the Uncanny Commandos placed those Explosive X things your scientist friends made throughout the concentration camp. We found some survivors in another part of the place. They want to join the resistance, and will come with us after we blow this joint to Hades. You’d better come with us.”

Zoro took an ax from the wall behind him and replied. “I’ll be with you shortly, Thunderbolt. There’s one more thing I have to do.”

Thunderbolt was confused, but he left the room anyway. Zoro swung the ax. Its blade struck Doctor Teufel’s neck. Putting the ax down, Zoro grabbed his foe’s severed head. Teufel’s mouth moved to attempt to bite Zoro. The Purple Zombie wrapped it in the white sheet that was under Teufel’s body and carried it like an American football while running out of the laboratory.

Torchsong asked, “What’s that you got, Captain Zoro?”

Zoro unwrapped the sheet. Torchsong winced at the sight of Doctor Teufel’s decapitated zombie head. She regained her composure after a few seconds and said, “He got what he deserved. What are you going to do with him, captain?

Zoro replied, “You’ll see when you and Thunderbolt light the Explosive X.”

The Explosive X spheres were spread out all over the concentration camp. One with a large fuse was located at the edge of the forest where the resistance and the Uncanny Commandos had come from. A pike had been placed near it. Zoro impaled Doctor Teufel’s head on it before Torchsong used her voice to light the bombs. Thunderbolt used his electrical powers on Explosive X nodules at the other end of the camp. A countdown had begun as the Uncanny Commandos, and the rebels ran as far away as possible. While nobody had been hurt, the blast’s shockwave had thrown them a great distance. There had been one great bit of satisfaction through it all, however. Zoro had turned to see the undead head of his enemy blow up with the concentration camp he had used to cause such horror. A crater was now in the place of that area of genocide and terror. It had died with Doctor Traugott Teufel and his undead army.

The End

Robert McQuaid, the man known as the Gassaway Gadfly, held the rapt audience in the palm of his hand. The entirety of the county, from Flatwoods to the small holler towns like Gem and Riffle, was tucked inside the big blue-and-white tent near the Calhoun County line.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” McQuaid proclaimed. “I have here a creature.”
The audience gasped.

“No, I have here a god.”

More shock and awe, plus an added edge of anger over such outright blasphemy.

“Most important of all,” McQuaid said with his arm in the Roman orator pose, “I have here our savior.”

Now the crowd was close to a riot. Although things had been strange and unsettled for a year since the sudden appearance of the alien or demon or whatever it was that crash-landed on G. Bailey Fisher’s farm, the God-fearing citizens of Braxton County still believed in the strictures of the Old Testament, and they also knew deep in their bones that they only had one Lord and Savior.

McQuaid appealed for calm. He lowered his voice and relaxed his shoulders. The traveling salesman-turned-local politician dropped the pretend preacher act and became just another neighbor.

“I mean no heresy,” he said. “But, after speaking to so many experts, from Mr. Barker of Clarksburg to some friends with the National Guard, I feel confident in telling you that the thing behind this curtain is our deliverance.”

“Get on with it, man,” cried a voice from the crowd. Heads turned, and ears perked up. They recognized Homer Henderson, the old country mechanic notorious for his hot temper and cynical attitude.

“You’ve already committed one sin,” Homer continued. “May as well go all the way.”

“I have committed no sin,” McQuaid said. “I have only used provocative language to underscore how momentous this moment is. Really, ladies and gentlemen, I’m not sure you understand how big a deal this is. Your life will hereafter be changed for the better!”

“Is it that creature from last September?” Edna Wallace asked. “Did someone finally find it?”

“Yes and no,” McQuaid answered. “I have no proof that the creature behind this curtain is the same friend who visited us last year. However, judging by its looks and how it speaks, I do believe it is kin and of the same race.”

“Friend?” Homer bellowed. “That thing from last year weren’t no friend to anybody. It stunk like Perdition sulfur, plus it damn near killed the May boys with poison gas. You call that a friend?”

The angry chorus grew louder. McQuaid had to yell over them to be heard.

“Ladies and gentlemen, please. Please do not give in to acrimony over my inability to speak clearly. Please forgive me. I may have lost a bit of my sanity since my new friend first contacted me but trust me when I say that everything is good and glorious. The friend waiting behind this curtain means us no harm. It, in fact, wants to point us towards prosperity.”

A heckler spoke up. “Did it find a new mine to dig?”

The crowd laughed. It was a cold, cruel laugh, as Braxton County had seen mines and mining companies come and go without so much as one red cent being invested back into the communities.

“No, something much, much better than that.” The excitement was palpable in McQuaid’s voice. He rubbed his hands together and started jumping up and down on the podium. He looked like a little kid on Christmas.

“Well, ladies and gentlemen. Are you ready to meet our new friend?”

The crowd didn’t scream in applause or boo and hiss. A low grumbling moved through their ranks, which could not be accurately defined. It was neither positive nor negative. It merely existed in the space between.

McQuaid, however, was effulgent. He looked higher than the moon itself, and after his hands pulled down the velvet curtain, he remained staring in total adoration of his new friend.

The crowd moved back a little when the creature was revealed. A few even ran out of the tent completely. There, on the stage next to the reverential McQuaid, stood a monstrosity with a fleshless red face, large, disk-like yellow eyes, and talons instead of fingers. Its dress was a spectral green, with a large hood that almost looked like a halo above the creature’s head.

Despite having no visible mouth, McQuaid’s “friend” spoke to the audience.

“I have traveled many distances and have come here under orders to tell you all that gold is beneath your feet.”

“Gold?” said the chorus.

“Yes, gold,” McQuaid interjected. Our friend believes that there are streams of gold buried in the hills. If we dig deep enough, that money shall be ours.”

“Where is this gold?” Homer asked. He sounded and looked unconvinced.

“The gold is everywhere,” the creature said. By this point, its foul stench had worked its way through the crowd. Pinched nostrils and cupped mouths could not prevent the rotten-egg smell from seeping through. More started to exit the tent.

“Please,” McQuaid begged. “Do not run in fear or horror. What our friend says is true. I discovered gold on my property last night.” From a back pocket, McQuaid removed and held up a tiny ingot that glowed underneath the electric lights. A small wave of oohs and aahs spread through the thinning crowd.

“That’s nothing but fool’s gold,” Homer proclaimed. “Might even be a painted rock.”

The mechanic’s words had power. They convinced fence-sitters to jeer McQuaid and his freak.

The creature, who had a name and a mission, felt sadness. His heart hung heavily because none of the crowd believed him or his human partner. They all seemed dismissive towards the man tasked with helping the creature to spread the good news.

Eventually, McQuaid was left all alone with his friend.

“They’ll come around,” he said. “I’ll convince them.”

The creature wasn’t so sure.

Earlier this year, ferret-faced thespian Timothée Chalamet ruffled more than a few feathers by disparaging opera and ballet as “dying” and “unpopular” art forms that require massive subsidies from wealthy patrons and civil governments because general audiences don’t care about them anymore. The unspoken addendum to this assertion, that film, which is Chalamet’s medium of choice, retains mass appeal and importance, is questionable. Cinema is dying, but at a slower rate than ballet or opera.

Reactions to Chalamet’s assertions were swift and, frankly, petulant. The Seattle Opera even used the actor’s name as a discount code for their tickets. Take that, Frenchie, I guess.

Anyway…

Discussing this simple brouhaha calls to mind another dying art form: the stage. Broadway ain’t much anymore, and one gets the feeling that the stage only exists so that movie and TV actors can do a “side quest” or two in order to add gravitas to their limp resumes. And then there are playwrights. Who is the most famous, most widely read playwright living right now? Beats me. Do you have an answer? Doubtful. Given this reality, any writer specializing in plays unlikely to be staged or produced must be a madman of some sort.

Enter Daniel Gaviloski, one of the central figures of Unreal Press, THE publisher of lit/ ficiton. A Hiberno-Russian author based in the Russian-majority city of Daugavpils, Latvia, Gaviloski’s debut effort is a collection of three plays entitled Carbon Pages. According to the author’s preface, the book’s title is a reference to the dissident, self-published samizdat of the Soviet period. Carbon Pages is therefore an intentional stirring from the literary underground—an unrepressed return from the chthonic depths of tarnished European high culture. And Carbon Pages definitely aims for high culture: the three plays contained in this collection (two of which the author informs us have been staged in Munich and Dublin) are high-brow experimental, sometimes crass but always in an erudite way, and bear all the morbid oddity of Bruno Schulz and Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky. Indeed, the thoroughly Eastern European (specifically Russian) quality of this work gives it a certain heft of Slavic seriousness à la Mikhail Bulgakov and the inaccessible comedies of Mikhail Zoshchenko. As a complete work, Carbon Pages delights in the anarchic absurdity that so often travels right beside pretentious artists as they attempt to translate the life of the mind into life as it is actually lived.

The opening play, stylized as “COGNITOHAZARD,” is my favorite in the collection. Here, time and place seem settled until they don’t. We are told that the story takes place in an Italian bordello “after the war.” We are not told which war, but usually, when “postwar” is invoked in the context of Europe, it is a given that the war in question is World War II. However, in “COGNITOHAZARD,” the babbling whores speak in circles while Plastic Bertrand plays on the radio. That should at least place things in the late ‘70s, yet nobody refers to the 1970s as “postwar,” even if it’s technically correct. There are other moments in this place that similarly confound temporality, which is kind of the point.

“COGNITOHAZARD” has as its characters a bunch of loquacious prostitutes—Lola, Krystal, Topaz, and Madame Mandelstam. These characters are indistinguishable from one another, although Miss Mandelstam does wind up murdered in the bordello’s sitting room. Only one hooker, Chichi, is memorable, and that is because she is mute. Chichi also seems to be the only prostitute with any sense, for as events begin to unravel in the bordello, it is only Chichi who takes things seriously. The menace stalking the prostitutes is not just the killer of Miss Mandelstam but is also the great mind-eraser squatting in the bathroom. You see, whenever one of the girls works up the gumption to go and look at the killer lurking near the sink, she returns to the adjoining room with a major case of amnesia. Even the with-it Chichi is left scribbling blanks after spending mere seconds in the bathroom.

Gaviloski makes the brilliant decision to let his monster loose without describing it. At the play’s climax, as the whores bicker over the usual drama, the Lovecraftian monstrosity leaves the bathroom and slinks around menacingly until one of the girls basically tells the stygian horror to leave them all alone. They’re busy being bitchy to one another, after all. The unnamable horror attacks, nevertheless, and “COGNITOHAZARD” ends with all of the prostitutes leaving the room as if nothing happened at all.

While “COGNITOHAZARD” is a stupendously trippy horror that defies genre conventions, the final play in the collection, “Boring and Broke in Buenos Aires,” is more standard fare. The Buenos Aires of this play reads like the Digital Age’s answer to Jazz Age Paris, where artists as illustrious as Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Ernest Hemingway flitted away hours discussing fiction and art in between endless rounds of coffee and cocktails. Here, underneath Gaviloski’s pen, we are introduced to an assortment of oddballs ranging from the British sci-fi writer Parker, who believes that writers must live (see: sleep with prostitutes and get drunk) in order to write anything worth reading, to the cerebral French Maoist Marquis, who always speaks as if he’s giving an oration on philosophy. Other characters come and go, but really, none of them are important. What matters more is the mise-en-scène of the digital nomads in Buenos Aires and their meandering discussions about creativity, marketing, and artistic productivity. One gets the feel of being a ghost seated next to these blowhards as they speak in an Internet-meme argot between highfalutin dispositions. The only character who gets close to the truth is the foul-mouthed Melman, who shits all over the idea of writing in the twenty-first century.

Artist, writer. It’s all pointless. There’s nothing to write about no more. Everyone has the same boring life, man. The same blue screen childhood followed by 8 hours of school. That’s your early twenties right there. Then wageslave till you die leap frogging from Netflix show to videogame.

Like any good truthteller, Melman eventually loses his train of thought and gets drunk. “Boring and Broke in Buenos Aires” ends with nothing happening, which is a succinct summation of the contemporary vagabond existence of “artsy” expats.

Gaviloski’s undisputed magnum opus is the collection’s second play, “No Weapon Formed Against You.” This epic spans over two hundred pages and contains three sections set in 1980, 1993, and 1999. The author admits that this play may forever elude staging attempts due to its sprawling nature. “No Weapon Formed Against You” recounts the origins of three Russian artists and intellectuals—the poet and novelist Eduard Limonov, the academic and political theorist Aleksandr Dugin, and the musician Yegor Letov. In the first section, Dugin and Letov are shown to be social dissidents who are institutionalized and interrogated by the Soviet Union’s security and medical bureaucracies. Both men are accused of publishing samizdat and smuggling in such offensive contraband as Beatles and Rolling Stones records from the West. Limonov, on the other hand, is living down and out in Paris as a literary wunderkind with a wealthy French lover and a supportive editor at L’Idiot. Limonov lives in exile in the West, where he cultivates a punk persona while earnestly being enchanted by all things French and American.

Cut to 1993. The Soviet Union has collapsed. All three men are now living in a democratic, capitalist Russia. One would think that they, the victims of late Soviet boorishness, would celebrate such an existence, but you would be wrong. Limonov, Dugin, and Letov publicly sing the praises of left- and right-wing authoritarians like Stalin, Hitler, and Gabriele D’Annunzio for their gallant stands against Anglo-Saxon civilization. Their mouthpiece becomes the National Bolshevik Party, a synthesis between Marxism-Leninism, Russian nationalism, and fascism. Dugin is drawn as the party’s great brain—a deeply religious man who nevertheless traffics in occult rituals that border on bourgeois Satanism. The popular Letov is the party’s manager—a surprisingly rational and hard-headed man despite his effusive declarations in support of individualist anarchism. Limonov is, in many ways, the same character from 1980, and his thirst for preening publicity makes him the figurehead of the insurgent NazBols.

The final section of the play, set in Moscow and Kazakhstan in 1999, sees Limov and Dugin lead a quixotic, Fiume-esque march on a Kazakh border town in the hopes of establishing an independent state dedicated to National Bolshevism. The occupation of Lapdukk draws in political radicals from as far afield as Italy, which in turn draws the ire of President Yeltsin back in Moscow. Ledov, now a member of Russia’s parliament, coordinates the peaceful return of Lapdukk to Kazakhstan and the dispersal of Limonov and Dugin’s militia, but ultimately an alternative timeline forms in which the National Bolsheviks seize power in Moscow and Limonov becomes the great hero of a new state. None of this happened in reality, of course. The real Limonov was suppressed and arrested by the Putin regime for supposedly planning a private military expedition in Central Asia, while Letov renounced all political activism before succumbing to a heart ailment at just forty-three. Dugin, of course, is often characterized as “Putin’s Rasputin” in the West, and he appears frequently on podcasts in order to denounce “Satanic” America [1]. Yet, according to many Russians, Dugin is treated as a minor curiosity in his home country. The truth about Dugin is probably somewhere in between. After all, you don’t murder the daughter of a “minor curiosity.” Dugin is clearly more important than that.

“No Weapon Formed Against You” shows off Gaviloski’s exceptional talent for dialogue. There is also a lot of genius black humor in this fictional rendering of recent history. Limonov in particular is a riot, if only because he is such an irredeemable prick. Of all the characters, Letov comes across best, but he is given the least stage time compared to his co-conspirators. Ultimately, this is a play that demands a basic knowledge of Russian history, literature, and politics. Being ignorant of all three doesn’t mean you cannot enjoy “No Weapon Formed Against You,” but it does mean you’ll be confused quite a bit.

Carbon Pages is exceptional and, at the same time, exceptionally weird. The many sketches contained within this work, which recall the art of Ralph Steadman, highlight the bone-deep weirdness like none other. These plays are not destined for Broadway, either on or off, and that is just fine. All three can be read and enjoyed as short stories told via dialogue, and that is fine too. Pretty much everything is fine about this collection, and while Gaviloski is definitely guilty of being too non-conformist too much, and while the Irish-Russian-Latvian playwright reads like a man impressed with his own intelligence, it is hard to argue that Carbon Pages is not one of the most outstanding pieces of capital L literature produced by the online dissident sphere. This book has the makings of a seminal text, and like many such testaments, it may take a while for the normies to recognize and appreciate its idiosyncratic artistry.

[1] Dugin’s most recent controversy stems from his Twitter account. Namely, Dugin wrote several missives denouncing White people and saying that White civilization ought to be terminated.

Transportation magnate Horace Greenberg’s infant son, Horace, Jr., had been kidnapped mere days before Christmas 1925. Harold’s investigation led him to the gray-robed Cult of the Great Dreamer, whose symbol - the crimson image of an eye with six small tentacles coming out of the pupil - sat in the center of their robes. Underground tunnels led to their base and its altar. Torch flames danced across the walls, providing light for the shadowy paths. They looked as if they had been burrowed from below by a gargantuan mole. The remains of some otherworldly, gigantic beasts also seemed to have been used to create them. Harold could have sworn that the bones were a mixture of whale, frog, and some tentacled creature like a squid or an octopus.

Harold’s keen ears had picked up chanting somewhere between the third and fourth tunnel. He crouched and slowed his pace upon nearing the entrance to the cult’s sacrificial altar.

Torches surrounded six cultists in the center. Their flames cast a light that seemed more eerie than illuminating, and they, like the half-dozen cowled and robed men around them, formed a circle around a rectangular stone. Resting upon the oddly perfectly shaped rock was Horace Greenberg, Jr. His chubby arms and legs moved in fits as his screams became louder. Voices that seemed to come from everywhere at once echoed the chants Harold had heard.

Harold’s nostrils were assaulted by an overpowering smell of rotting flesh and death. It took all of his willpower not to vomit from the stench. He kept thinking to himself that young Horace needed him. This allowed him to proceed.

The cultists continued their chants. One of the six at the altar had a dagger with a triple curved blade in his right hand. Harold Roberts knew in that moment that the Cult of the Great Dreamer intended to kill the baby. He had to stop them no matter what it cost.

The cultist raised the dagger over his head. Harold had only one chance. He had to make sure his shot didn’t miss. He fired his pistol. The bullet struck the cultist’s hand. The knife had fallen to the cave floor with a slight clatter. Another projectile struck the back of the wielder’s hooded head. His body struck a torch. Its wood split, causing fire to fall on the corpse. The other five cultists backed away as their comrade turned to ash.

The cultists at the altar looked in Harold’s direction as he made an unsuccessful running dive to grab Horace, Jr. Ten fists pummeled his burly body. The police detective did everything he could to defend himself and shield young Horace. A punch to one, a kick to another. Harold was able to free himself from the robed madmen. He was relieved, but he couldn’t stop to catch his breath. One portly cultist was suddenly over Harold, punching him repeatedly in the face with his fat, swollen fists. Harold had pulled his assailant’s hood down in the scuffle. The revelation of his attacker’s identity sent a wave of shock and anger throughout his body. It was Boston Police Chief William Riley, the man who had assigned Harold to search for Horace Greenberg, Jr. This same man had saved Harold Roberts on numerous occasions and even gave him a medal for preventing the mayor’s assassination. Harold’s boss was a member of the Cult of the Great Dreamer who wanted to kill Harold.

The white hair on the sides of Riley’s head and in his beard made one believe he might have played Santa Claus at this time of year. Yet, the crazed look in his icy blue eyes showed he was not the ripe, jolly old saint whom he could imitate. His fists struck Harold in rage and madness. Harold’s hands clamped around Riley’s thick neck after punching him several times.

It’s like strangling a bull, Harold thought.

Both men struggled, yet Harold was no slouch in the brute strength department. He’d knocked out crooks twice his size when he was a beat cop. Both men, full of rage and adrenaline, continued squeezing each other’s necks just as Riley gripped his in his meaty hands. However, the screams, cries, and whimpers of Horace Greenberg, Jr., motivated Harold Roberts. The police detective would move mountains to ensure the child was safe at home with his mother.

Flesh was squeezed until a horrible crunching like dry, fallen tree branches under one’s boots as they had walked in the woods was heard. Harold Roberts managed to break Police Chief William Riley’s neck. The other three at the altar hadn’t moved for some seconds because they hadn’t expected Harold to survive his fight with Riley.

Harold fired his gun. One bullet struck a cultist in the abdomen. He fell backward from the altar. His body was impaled by a stone carved into the shape of a tentacle. Two more shots hit two others dead center in their heads. The rest of the group had gone mad with anger. Having only one bullet, Harold needed to figure out how to stop the rest of this mad lot.

In the center of the cave’s ceiling hung a large pyre-like structure, suspended by a chain intertwined between two spiraled stone tentacle shapes. If Harold could shoot a weak link, the huge lamp would create a flaming wall to stop the others from following. He could also throw his lantern to literally add fuel to the fire if necessary.

Suddenly, Harold felt a sharp pain. The dagger blade with three curves was sticking out of his chest near the junction between his right arm and shoulder. He let out a loud scream. His blood dripped onto the stone floor. Damn him for not taking care of the last cultist at the altar when he should have!

Harold turned to face his attacker, the gaunt, sallow, and frail Horace Greenberg, Senior. When Harold had only spoken to Wilma Greenberg, the infant had disappeared. The child’s father refused to see anyone because of the cancer ravaging his body. Harold understood why. The man had looked like death warmed over.

There was a raging madness that rivaled that of Chief Riley in Horace Greenberg, Senior’s gray eyes as he hissed, “You will not deny me my chance at immortality!”

The intensity of both Horace, Jr.’s cries, and Harold’s blood loss increased. Still, something - his strength of will, adrenaline, his need to save Horace, Jr., or perhaps a little of all of those factors - kept Harold standing.

Harold took a deep breath and asked, “So, you’d sacrifice your own son to live forever?”

“My immortality is more important! With it, I’ll rule this world of stupid apes!”

Something happened after Greenberg, Senior, had made his venomous statement. The members of the Cult of the Great Dreamer went from serene, sheepish chanters to a riotous mob with a bloodlust in mere moments. In spite of the blood loss, Harold grabbed the Greenberg baby and moved as fast as possible. He could hear Greenberg, Senior’s protests being drowned out by the outraged roars of the crowd behind him.

Harold moved like a drunk due to blood loss, but he still did his best to run. He saw that nobody followed him. His ears told him the Cult of the Great Dreamer was too busy tearing apart Horace Greenberg, Senior. Harold wouldn’t need to shoot his last bullet after all. These people and their anger at Horace, Senior’s broken promises, were doing his work for him.

Harold tried to console the crying child while he moved through the dank passages back to Boston’s city streets. Harold took lit torches from their tentacle-shaped handles and threw them to the ground to cover his escape. Oil from Harold’s lantern increased their blaze.

Harold was about to pass out from blood loss as he approached the roughly constructed exit leading to the street. His movements were becoming more unsteady as he got closer to the old, gnarled wooden door.

A winter wind stabbed Harold in the face, and snowflakes of blowing snow bit his cheeks. He and the baby had almost made it. If Horace, Jr., got to safety, that would be enough for Harold. He and young Horace had made it to a snow-covered sidewalk. The burly detective had fallen backward. He was sure he’d land in the snow until he felt three pairs of hands catch him. Blood loss had overtaken Police Detective Harold Roberts, and he welcomed the black-veiled sweetness of repose.

*

The tall, burly, dark-haired Harold Roberts woke up from the same nightmare. “Nightmare” was only a partially accurate term for what he had endured. His subconscious had forced him to relive the events that had forced him to leave the Boston Police Department. While he recovered from his injury, Wilma Greenberg thanked Harold for saving Horace, Jr. There had been no trace of any of the Cult of the Great Dreamer. Fires had consumed the caverns. However, Harold didn’t care what had happened to them. Horace Greenberg, Jr., was home safe and sound, where he belonged. That’s all that truly mattered.

In the days that followed, Harold checked in on the Greenbergs, turned down a promotion to chief of police, and handed in his resignation. Harold didn’t know who he could trust. Harold had once thought Chief Riley was an honorable man. A part of him still believed in the good in all people. However, the Greenberg case increased his suspicions nearly tenfold.

Harold had packed all his belongings after he was released from the hospital. He had every intention of returning to Dove Creek, Ohio, where he was born and raised. He’d open a private detective’s office there. He could live with and look after his elderly paternal grandparents. Their neighbors, Sam and Edith Anderson, and their daughter Beth, had looked after Grandma and Grandpa Roberts after Harold moved to Boston. Beth had written Harold when he was in the hospital. Both Grandpa and Grandma Roberts’ health had worsened. Grandma needed a wheelchair to get around, and Grandpa is confined to his bed.

When Harold told his friends and colleagues in Boston he was opening a private investigator’s office in Dove Creek, Ohio, they all chuckled or laughed heartily.

“Nothing ever happens in Ohio,” they all said.

That was exactly what Harold was counting on. Recent events had soured him on life in Boston. He wanted to make a difference when he first arrived at the Third Precinct on Harvest Avenue. Perhaps he did make a difference to some, including Horace Greenberg, Jr. Yet, how could Harold do more if those he worked with were as bad or worse than the criminals he put in prison?

It had been nearly three years since the Greenberg Baby Case had been closed. Harold still had the cruel dagger scar on his shoulder. He sat on his bed for a few minutes before checking on his grandparents. He stood up to look out the window. There had been a heavy snow the night before. The main creek and the surrounding streams were frozen. Getting water from the pump would be a real chore today.

Harold left his room, knocked on the wooden door across the hall, and asked impishly, “Are you both decent?”

“Come on in, Skeeter,” Grandpa Roberts called.

Grandpa had always called Harold “Skeeter” ever since he was a toddler. Harold never understood where the nickname had come from. Grandpa never gave him the same answer every time he asked. Most people might find that irritating, but Harold found the nickname endearing. Grandpa’s stories about it were a continuous private joke between the two of them. Grandma had once told Grandpa to stop calling Harold “Skeeter” not long after he had joined the Boston Police Department. Harold insisted otherwise. He called it a beacon of joy in the madness of the big city. Harold hadn’t realized how right he was until he had returned to Ohio.

He turned the doorknob and entered the room. What he saw still pulled at his heartstrings even after all this time. Two of the strongest people he knew now need help with basic everyday tasks. They put on a mask to hide how they felt about their need for assistance, but he could see it hurt their pride from time to time.

Grandma, a tall, medium-built woman in her early seventies, gave the impression of great strength despite her recent setbacks. Her flowered pajamas mirrored her colorful spirit. From what Grandma had told Harold when he was old enough to understand, her father drank heavily and beat her, her mother, and her younger sister. Sometimes, Grandma would do everything to make them laugh in order to ease the situation. This helped forge her character. It’s one of the many things that made Grandpa fall in love with her.

Grandpa had his stubborn streak, but his character was similar to Grandma’s. One tended to help the other in moments of weakness or troubled times.

Grandma moved from the bed to her wheelchair with help from her arms. Harold ran to her. “Now, Gram,” he said in a slightly scolding tone, “I told you to wait for me to help you get in the chair.”

“Hush, now, Harry,” She shot back in a similar tone. “You’ve got your hands full enough as it is with Grandpa.”

On the left side of the bed lay Grandpa. He had lost weight, but he still looked powerful enough to wrestle a bull. For reasons that Doctor Simmons and others can’t fathom, Grandpa had been paralyzed from the neck down. He could move his head and facial muscles. Yet, he was unable to get out of bed by himself. He needed help sitting up, and Harold had to carry him to a chair or to the bathroom. He also had to do the latter for Grandma.

It hurt Harold to see his grandparents like this. He found it strange that Grandma and Grandpa Roberts’ current condition began the same night he had been stabbed. According to Beth, her father, Sam Anderson, had found them the next morning and called Doctor Simmons. Grandma and Grandpa told Doc when their afflictions had started. Harold regretted not returning to help them sooner.

“You don’t go blaming yourself, Skeeter,” Grandpa said to Harold when he returned. “You were hurt badly for what you told us.”

“Besides, Sam, Edith, and Beth Anderson looked after us while you were in the hospital,” Grandma said.

Harold brought himself back to the present. He wouldn’t help Grandma and Grandpa by beating himself up about the past. They needed him here and now, and he wasn’t about to let them down.

“I had that dream again,” Grandpa had said to Harold after breakfast.

Grandpa had had the nightmares since before Christmas of this year. Harold had learned the details a couple of days ago. Portals of green energy appeared in the skies over Dove Creek, Ohio. Gray-green-blue tentacles came out of them. The appendages were wet, and a grayish-green viscous fluid dripped from them as they undulated and moved frantically.

The liquid changed people’s appearance when it came into contact with them. Their human skin was shed, making way for something gray and amphibious. Human eyes were replaced with something unblinking and unearthly, like a leviathan from another part of the cosmos, ancient when the Big Bang began. Said eyes’ irises had two colors instead of one - a chilling blue and a fluorescent green. Small appendages resembling tentacles were all over the edges of the people’s faces.

Those who weren’t struck by the slimy substance were grabbed by the tentacles. After being entwined, the victims, for want of a better term, were encased in a green-blue-gray cocoon with a frightful glow to it. Grandpa said he saw at least ten of them in his dream.

Grandpa told Harold that this dream didn’t seem like a nightmare. In fact, he neither felt good nor bad after waking from it numerous times. Harold felt a shiver run up and down his spine when he heard the details, but he told Grandpa it was just a dream. This morning, however, it seemed like someone had danced on his grave when he heard what Grandma said. She had had the dream, too.

*

After chipping away at the ice and using foul language, Harold finally managed to get the kitchen water pump working despite the frigid temperatures. He helped his grandparents clean up afterward and threw more logs into the wood-burning stove at the other end of the hall. Grandma and Grandpa won’t have trouble keeping warm once the fire gets started.

Harold made breakfast. He wasn’t the best cook, but he remembered Grandma’s pancake recipe. She taught it to him when he was a teenager. He whipped up a batch for his grandparents and himself. They needed his assistance with many things. However, their appetites were still as they were before they were stricken. Plus, pancake breakfasts had been a Roberts family tradition since Harold’s parents were still alive.

Harold never quite understood why his parents had to die in that train crash when he was just a boy. Grandpa told him that things happen that we can’t explain. Sometimes, we aren’t meant to know why. They happen, and that’s that. It isn’t because we do bad things or think bad thoughts. Fate just turns things around in ways we neither want nor expect. At the time, Harold was confused by Grandpa’s words of wisdom. Now, he found them to be extreme sage and true, particularly now.

The morning had crept away, leaving room for the afternoon. His grandparents’ dream was on Harold’s mind as he did various chores around the house. His thoughts on it were especially strong when he went to the kitchen to start his next task before lunch. He couldn’t pinpoint why. Something - the instinct and intuition that made him a decent detective, perhaps - made him believe that it was something more sinister.

Harold looked at the calendar. The date was December 31, 1928. Tonight was Dove Creek’s annual New Year’s Eve party. Everyone will get together in the town square to celebrate. Various small fires would be placed around a larger one in the center to keep folks warm and cook food for those who got hungry after dancing. The lavishly lit heart of the village always seemed to overflow with joy and merriment during the party. It was one of the few nights when the townspeople didn’t worry about the winter weather.

Harold still couldn’t shake the ominous feeling he had in his soul. It was a sensation that chilled him to the core. He wondered if tonight would be the last New Year’s Eve for Dove Creek, Ohio. He couldn’t put his finger on why. Maybe Grandpa’s dream had shaken Harold up more than he realized.

A knock on the front door interrupted Harold’s dark reverie. He went to the foyer.. The winter wind lightly slapped his face as he opened the door. He smiled when he saw Beth Anderson’s frail form bundled up in what looked like seven layers of wool and winter clothing. Only her green eyes were visible. Behind her were her parents, Sam and Edith. Like Beth, they were tall with green eyes. Their winter garments also covered their features. The Andersons, as per annual tradition, dropped by on the afternoon of December 31st before everybody went to the Dove Creek Square to ring in the new year. All three entered the foyer. Sam closed the door while Harold helped Beth with her hat, coat, and scarf. She removed her gloves. Beth was as tall as Harold. Her braided red hair had been mussed slightly. Her dark blue skirt and sweater complemented her form. Harold admired her body. She smiled timidly at Harold, knowing he was looking at her. Her cheeks became rosy in color. Harold couldn’t tell if this was due to the winter wind or to Harold’s reactions to her. Harold Roberts was madly in love with Beth Anderson.

“Snow let up about an hour ago,” Sam said with a broad grin as he took off his hat and helped Edith place her winter gear in the small closet in the foyer. Edith wiped her horn-rimmed glasses with a handkerchief. She muttered something about snow and rain fogging up her spectacles.

Both Sam and Edith had red hair flecked with gray. Sam, like Grandpa, was a robust man. However, he had bald spots on the top of his head, with his graying hair thinning in the center between them. Edith and Beth were both a mix of physical and mental strength and fragility. Harold equated them to the goddesses he had read about in those Greek and Norse mythology books Aunt Rita gave him when he was a teenager. Both Sam and Edith were in their mid-sixties, yet, they looked much younger.

“We may have good weather going to the New Year’s Eve party tonight,” Sam continued, clapping Harold’s left shoulder.

“I hope so,” Harold replied joyfully. “I’m looking forward to dancing with Beth.”

Harold saw Beth blush again. Perhaps he had been too direct. He was never quite sure about these sorts of things. He approached her while Sam and Edith went to greet Grandma and Grandpa. He held Beth’s hand, smiled at her, and said, “You look adorable when you blush.”

“Stop,” Beth said in mock protest, blushing even more.

“No, really. You do.”

Harold took Beth’s other hand, hummed a tune like a sick mule, and danced with her from the foyer to the living room. The fire he started some time before needed a fresh log or two. He placed them in the fireplace and returned to dance with Beth.

“I love you, Beth,” he said while they twirled together around the room.

“I love you, too, Harold.” There was a hint of fear in Beth’s voice. Considering she had been together with Roger Lucas until his death about a year before Harold’s return, her tone was normal. Harold understood why. It didn’t need to be said. She was scared Harold would become like Roger, even if she knew in her heart he wouldn’t. Whatever Roger did to Beth had scarred her soul as much as, Harold assumed, it had her body. Harold could see that. Words were unnecessary, not between Harold and Beth, anyway. He just held her while they danced. His humming was more off-key than usual. Yet, it somehow calmed Beth and made her laugh. The dancing would continue well into dusk, and both Harold and Beth paid no attention to the world around them. All they saw was each other.

*

The time for Dove Creek’s New Year’s Eve Party was just minutes away. Sam had prepared a large covered wagon attached to a team of four horses as he did every year. It was large enough to hold four people, including a driver and a passenger up front. Harold and Sam helped Grandma and Grandpa get in. Grandpa protested that everyone would have more fun without him and Grandma.

“Now, Gramps,” Harold counter-protested while covering Grandpa tightly with a trio of blankets, “if you think it’ll be fun without you and Gram, you’ve gone senile. Besides, folks want to hear you sing “Auld Lang Syne” at midnight. I can’t sing a lick. Last time I tried, the local cows gave sour milk for months.”

Grandpa laughed. Grandma sat in front of him with Beth to her left. Harold placed himself to Grandpa’s right. Sam and Edith sat in the front of the wagon. They both guided the horses. As much as it hurt his pride to travel this way, Grandpa had to admit that he did enjoy traveling to the New Year’s party this way. The ride to town, as always, was smooth and without incident.

“I had that dream again,” Grandpa said to Harold. “This time you were in it. One of those creatures took you. I woke up thinking it was real.”

Beth listened. Harold had told her of his grandparents’ eerie dream. What Grandpa had just said scared her. She didn’t show this to everyone, but Harold could see it in her eyes. He smiled with a glance that told her everything would be okay. Harold then looked at Grandpa reassuringly. “I’m right here now, Gramps. Don’t worry. Nothing’s going to happen to me that I don’t want to happen.”

“You’re right. I’m just being a silly old fool.”

“No, you’re what you always were, a grandfather worried about his grandson.” Harold patted Grandpa’s left shoulder. “Now prepare your singing voice and your best fishing stories. We’re almost there.”

Upon their arrival, Harold helped Grandma into her wheelchair. Sam was nearby to lend a hand and prevent her from slipping. Harold gave Grandpa a piggyback ride to the chairs near the large cooking fires at the center of the Dove Creek town square. Grandpa grumbled and complained about being carried.

Harold chuckled. “Remember the piggyback rides you gave me when I was little? I’m returning the favor. Besides, you said you always wanted one.”

“I wanted one from my grandfather. I never knew him. He died before I was born.”

“Well, just pretend I’m him, Gramps,” Harold replied with a smile.

“The sky’s colors are unusual tonight.”

Harold helped him sit in a wooden chair. He then stared at the sky. Grandpa was right. There were some odd hues in Ohio’s winter skies that night. Glowing greens, grays, and blues peeked through the black curtain of darkness like holes in a moth-eaten fabric. Harold had gotten a chill that wasn’t from the cold. It had made his very being shiver even from within. Could Grandpa’s dream be a premonition?

“Go dance with Beth,” Grandpa said to Harold. “The music’s gonna start soon. I’ll be okay.”

Sam had parked Grandma’s wheelchair next to Grandpa when Beth stood next to Harold. Edith was conversing with Father Thomas, the local priest who served as band leader. Musicians tuned their instruments and tested them with a few notes. Beth put her arms around Harold. Dancing with her made him forget his worries. All that mattered was this moment together.

It was sometime after two o’clock in the morning, once the New Year’s Eve party had ended. Grandma and Grandpa fell asleep the moment they got in the wagon. Beth began to yawn. She placed her head on Harold’s shoulder and allowed herself to rest. Upon returning to the Roberts home, Harold noticed the unearthly hues in the sky seemed bolder, brighter, and more intense. There were also intermittent flashes of blue-green sparks like a blacksmith’s hammer striking hot metal.

Harold and Sam helped the former’s sleeping grandparents to their bed. They moved carefully up the stairs so as not to wake the elderly couple. Edith and Beth were quietly talking and yawning while sitting on the living room sofa. Sam took his wife’s hand and said, “Let’s get these ladies tucked in, Harold.”

As Sam guided Edith’s fatigued form upstairs, Beth had yawned again. Try as she might, she could barely stand. All the dancing she and Harold had done had taken more out of her than she realized. Harold carried Beth upstairs and placed her in the bed located in the room to the left of his. Harold covered Beth with a thick, blue blanket and kissed her goodnight.

Harold walked quietly to his room. He put on his pajamas and looked out the window. The sky’s colors that Grandpa had noticed seemed brighter. The flashing sparks became more frequent. Harold had that feeling that came to him before Beth, Edith, and Sam had arrived. It made him wonder what was going on. Are the weird lights in the sky the cause of these ominous sensations? Something told Harold that Dove Creek, Ohio, would be completely changed after tonight.

*

It was the afternoon on January 1, 1929, when Harold had been awakened by a knock on his bedroom door. He rubbed his eyes, yawned, and stretched. The voice on the other side jolted Harold from his half-asleep stupor.

“Are you decent, Harry?” Grandma had asked.

Grandma most likely got into her wheelchair without waiting for him to help. He almost ran to the door. Harold noticed Grandma was cleaned up and in a bright blue dress. Had Edith, Beth, or Sam helped her get ready? It wouldn’t have been the first time. Harold yawned again. “To call me ‘decent’ is an insult to decency, Gram,” he said.

“Oh, Harry,” she said between a series of giggles.

Sam and Edith come out of their room, yawning in that moment. Beth walked into the corridor, her face telling Harold she had just awakened. Harold was confused. If Beth, Edith, and Sam had just gotten out of bed, who helped Grandma bathe and dress? Harold’s befuddlement soon turned to shock at what he witnessed next. Grandma got up out of her wheelchair, walked to Harold, and hugged him. The surprises continued on this New Year’s Day when a familiar, jovial voice said a phrase Harold hadn’t heard in years.

“Race you downstairs, Skeeter.”

Harold turned to see Grandpa standing before him in his gray-and-black three-piece suit, which he called his Sunday best. Grandma could walk again, and Grandpa wasn’t confined to his bed. Like the beginning of their infliction, there had been no explanation. Grandma had already made it to the living room on her own without help. Grandpa ran downstairs to follow her. He took her in his arms and sang a song with which Harold was unfamiliar. They danced while Grandpa belted out the tune with the energy and vigor of a crooner half his age.

Everyone was overjoyed by this miracle. However, Harold’s detective instincts led him to want to know what had brought about his grandparents’ sudden affliction and surprising good health. Yet, he didn’t want to ruin his grandparents’ moment of happiness. Harold had pushed aside his misgivings for now.

Grandpa and Grandma had finished dancing when everyone else changed and had come downstairs for the traditional New Year’s Day late lunch. The men and women all worked together to make a meal that Grandma described as worthy of kings. Upon finishing, Grandpa got up from the table, smiling broadly.

“Well, folks,” he said, “Mayor Jenkins will be making his New Year’s speech at the Dove Creek town square in a couple of hours, and I want to get a good seat.”

*

Dove Creek’s skies were even more eerie than the night before. Plus, the striking flash was accompanied by an elongated shadow that reminded Harold of the tentacle shapes he had seen in the Cult of the Great Dreamer’s cave.

Grandpa looked up and asked, “Any idea what’s going on with the sky, Skeeter?”

“No, Gramps,” Harold replied, “It could be an effect of the Northern Lights.”

In truth, Harold wasn’t sure what was going on. He felt like a great change was coming, one that he believed he should prepare for the worst. However, he didn’t know how.

Grandpa helped Grandma get into the back of the wagon, while Harold and Sam helped Beth and Edith into the back of the wagon. “There you go, Millie Darling,” Grandpa said while wrapping some blankets around Grandma.

Grandpa got in the driver’s seat of the wagon. Sam tried to talk him out of it, but he insisted on it being his way of repaying Sam for all his help. Sam chuckled a bit. He then clapped Grandpa’s left shoulder.

“Tom Roberts,” Sam said humorously, “you are one of the most stubborn human beings I have ever met. Okay, you can drive. Are you sure you can do this? You haven’t guided horses and wagons since before you were stricken.”

“If you’re worried, you can get up front with me.”

The weather, for a January day in Ohio, had been kind to the travelers. The wind was light, so it didn’t feel as cold as on many winter days. There was less snow on the ground than the day before. In fact, the trip had been uneventful until about halfway to the town square. Harold looked at Beth, held her in his arms, and kissed her. Harold felt he had to do it right now in this moment. All Beth saw was Harold and vice versa. The rest of the world didn’t matter. This joy in their hearts and souls was all they needed now.

Grandpa had told everyone that they had arrived in the village square. The men and women walked arm in arm to their destination. Harold and Beth were behind her parents, with his grandparents leading.

The Dove Creek Mayor’s New Year’s speech is an annual tradition dating back to 1788. It is meant to bring hope, motivation, and inspiration to the citizens. This year would mark Mayor Roy Jenkins’ third discourse in a row. Harold could see the courthouse’s clock tower as he and Beth got closer to the crowd. There were still roughly forty-five minutes before Mayor Jenkins went to the podium in the center of the Dove Creek town square. Jenkins was a portly man with a white handlebar mustache who had been a fishing buddy of Grandpa’s for as long as Harold could remember. Jenkins was laughing boisterously with Grandpa.

“Glad to see you and Mildred up and about, Tommy,” Mayor Jenkins said in a jolly, yet guttural fashion. “Harold here must be taking good care of you two.”

“I wish I could take credit, sir,” Harold said, “But Grandma and Grandpa here are tougher than any ailment. I still want Doc Simmons to look them over when he can, just to be on the safe side.”

“You’re worrying over nothing, Skeeter,” Grandpa protested.

Mayor Jenkins cleared his throat. “You’re probably right, Tommy. Besides, Doc’s got his hands full lately. Now, if you’ll both excuse me, I must prepare for my speech.”

What did Mayor Jenkins mean by Doc having his hands full? Harold thought as the minutes passed.

Harold looked at the sky. The weird tentacle shadows moved more frequently a second or two before the oddly hued flashes. Try as he might, Harold couldn’t look away from it. Beth tapped him on his right shoulder, interrupting his observation of the heavens. “I found us some good seats next to Mom and Dad,” she said.

“Thanks, sweetheart,” Harold replied as they walked arm-in-arm.

The tower clock chimed on the top of the hour. It was now six o’clock. The mayor’s speech was about to begin. Harold looked lovingly at Beth and held her hand. She smiled timidly.

“Mayor Jenkins is over there, silly,” Beth said, indicating the podium.

Both Beth and Harold looked straight ahead. What they saw brought chills of terror through their entire bodies. Mayor Jenkins and five others were clad in the same gray robe as the Cult of the Great Dreamer. Their features and body structures were obscured by the fabric. Harold and Beth recognized only the voices at the podium. To Jenkins’ left was his wife, Annie. Doc Simmons and his wife Joan were to the mayor’s right, and beside Joan were Ron Henderson and his son Pete, who had gone to school with Harold and Beth.

Jenkins and those at the podium with him read from an old, timeworn book written in a long-dead language. They and the audience, to Harold and Beth’s horror, chanted in unison. Their haunting vocals sounded like a hive of angry bees. Beth and Harold held their ears as they watched the sky. Their sheer terror increased a thousandfold. Harold’s grandparents’ dream was coming true. Gray, slimy tentacles ripped through energy membranes in the sky like newborns coming into the world for the first time. Nearby streams and creeks that had been frozen were suddenly like the cataclysm that had consumed fabled Atlantis.

Harold and Beth tried everything they could to run away, but Sam, Edith, Grandma, and Grandpa held them in unearthly strong grips.

Mayor Jenkins faced Harold and Beth. “Harold, you defiler,” He sneered, “The Great Dreamer will want to change you and Beth along with all of us!”

Grandpa had Harold in a vice-like grip from which he could not free himself. “Sorry, Skeeter,” Grandpa said, “But you brought this on yourself when you let that baby live. The Great Dreamer struck us and promised to make us strong again. We just had to bring you here at the right time.”

Grandpa’s words stabbed Harold worse than any dagger. They went against all the lessons he and Grandma had taught him. Harold looked at Beth. She also struggled to no avail. This crowd of mad men and women was not about to let her and Harold escape.

Beth, in spite of her fear, whispered the four most important words Harold had ever heard from her.

“I love you, Harold.”

Flood water intermingled with the otherworldly liquids. Viscous fluids from the undulating tentacles dripped, striking everyone in the audience. Harold and Beth screamed. Their flesh burned, and their insides twisted and turned. The spectral ooze was transforming them. Their pinkish human skin had shed, giving way to slippery, amphibious green-gray-blue that glistened and reflected the many colors of light in the sky. White orbs with brown, blue, or green irises were replaced with chilling blue and fluorescent green, unblinking eyes like the leviathan that had spawned them. Females had ten tentacle-like appendages encircling their cheeks and chin, and males had only eight. Some late arrivals and stragglers were grabbed by the tentacles in the sky, which twirled and spiraled. Those they had captured had become encased in a glowing green-blue-gray cocoon. The strange swathe was released minutes later, falling at various points in the Dove Creek town square.

Water from the nearby creeks and streams continued to rise. The square had been nearly completely flooded. Medium-high waves engulfed everything they touched, cooling the burning, newly changed bodies of townspeople.

The transformation of Dove Creek’s citizens was complete. Winter clothing and pink human flesh no longer existed for them. In their places, wet was naked green-gray-blue skin that came from this world and another that was ancient when the universe was born. Noses replaced by two small slits that opened and closed to exhale and inhale. The newborn human/amphibian hybrids walked upright and looked around, as if seeing the world for the first time.

The individual minds of those in Dove Creek had hung on for a few moments. Yet, they soon became like an insect colony. The thoughts of every person were heard in unison as the many became one. The final reflections of Harold Roberts and Beth Anderson had perhaps the greatest impact on the newly transformed beings.

At least we are together.

A great, booming voice dominated the minds of Dove Creek’s populace. As it spoke in their minds, they saw to whom it belonged. Their newly evolved eyes were awed by the one who had brought about their rebirth. The gargantuan body was in an ancient dimension outside of our own. The creature was a hodgepodge of human, reptilian, and octopi traits. Dragon wings were on its gigantic back. Its webbed arms and legs were those of a powerful human god. Its enormous octopus-like head had tentacles surrounding its mouth. The appendages had the cocoons entwined within them. To many, the leviathan was called the Great Dreamer, and others named it The Sleeper of R’lyeh. Yet, if one could assign it a gender, he simply went by the moniker given to him by his parent, Nug - Cthulhu.

Cthulhu’s voice was a combination of a single being and a chorus of many. The creatures in Dove Creek looked around in joy and fear when they heard it speak within their newly evolved minds. The scene would make one think the amphibians were searching for reassurance and satisfaction from their father. Cthulhu simply said three words.

“Feed, my children.”

The cocoons were released from the Great Old One’s tentacles. They floated in the flooded square like a raft lost at sea. The humanoid amphibians encircled the glowing green sacks. Bloodcurdling screams came from those unfortunate enough to remain alive within the frightful chrysalis. The creatures devoured the banquet Cthulhu had provided like a starving man biting into meat for the first time.

“Nothing ever happens in Ohio,” they say.

Tell that to the population of Dove Creek, who became the Children of Cthulhu.

A Christian burial, indeed, he received, though unworthy of it; but it did not much benefit him: for issuing, by the handiwork of Satan, from his grave at night-time, and pursued by a pack of dogs with horrible barkings, he wandered through the courts and around the houses while all men made fast their doors, and did not dare to go abroad on any errand whatever from the beginning of the night until the sunrise, for fear of meeting and being beaten black and blue by this vagrant monster — William of Newburgh

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Medieval Darkness & Shadows in Colonial America

One of the strangest events (or rather series of events) in American history concerns the Great New England Vampire Panic of the 19th century.[i] All six of the New England states experienced some kind of vampire outbreak, from the charred remains of a Connecticut farmer[ii] to the infamous tale of Mercy Brown, the Exeter, Rhode Island girl accused of plaguing her family as one of the undead. One writer believes that the case of Massachusetts sailor James “Jimmy” Brown provided the prototype for Count Dracula in 1867.[iii] In short, the Guyana-born Brown murdered 19-year-old seaman James Foster by plunging a dagger into his chest. This rather mundane murder took on a supernatural hue once the newspapers published an account suggesting that Brown killed multiple sailors and used his dagger to make drinking holes in their bodies. Brown, they said, was a real-life vampire.

What should be made about colonial and Early Republic New England’s obsession with vampires? The Massachusetts Bay Colony’s witch madness is well-documented, but it is important to note that Virginia had its own witchcraft trials. [iv] Fears of malevolent witches was endemic in European society at the time, and America, as an extension of England, was certainly not immune. Vampires, on the other hand, seem to be a uniquely New England phenomenon.

Several suppositions have been put forward about this:

The Great New England Vampire panic coincided with tuberculosis, scarlet fever, and other health crises. The vampire accusations mainly occurred in small towns or rural villages, where medical emergencies were interpreted through a paranormal lens.

The New England states seemingly most impacted by the vampire panic were Rhode Island and Connecticut. These colonies tended to tolerate religious dissent (except for the theocracy of New Haven), with Rhode Island explicitly established as a refuge for Protestant dissenters banished from the Massachusetts Bay. Therefore, it seems plausible that older, pre-Reformation superstitions flourished in Rhode Island and Connecticut. Vermont, which was a frontier settlement for most of existence and out-of-range for Boston’s Puritans, also contributed to vampire tales.

It is likely that both of these ideas are true or have truth in them, but what is fascinating is that New England produced a vampire lore of its own. Whereas peasants in Serbia or Hungary dispatched vampires with wooden stakes and decapitation, New Englanders rid their communities of the undead by exhuming the suspected vampires, removing and burning their organs, and then mixing the ashes with water in order to feed the concoction to the afflicted.[v] This seems to be an autochthonous practice that was influenced by Enlightenment science to a degree.

But where did this tradition come from? While the idea of the walking undead can be found in Ancient Sumer and Egypt, the true heimat for vampires is in Eastern Europe. Most ethnographic studies on the topic have focused on Serbia, the old Austro-Hungarian Empire, and Romania for a reason—these are the areas where the most documentation exists. We know that colonial New England had next to no settlement from Eastern Europe, so there must have been another source.

Look no further than medieval England. William of Newburgh (1136-1198) was an Anglo-Saxon historian and priest who lived in Yorkshire. In the 12th century, he committed to parchment Historia rerum Anglicarum (“History of English Affairs”). Part-history and part-ethnography, William’s work displays some of the earliest stories of the revenant. It seems that Anglo-Saxons (and likely their Norman cousins) believed in revenants, which were reanimated corpses that returned to haunt and/or drain the life force of the living. In one passage, William describes the destruction of a suspected revenant in detail:

Thereupon snatching up a spade of but indifferent sharpness of edge, and hastening to the cemetery, they began to dig; and whilst they were thinking that they would have to dig to a greater depth, they suddenly, before much of the earth had been removed, laid bare the corpse, swollen to an enormous corpulence, with its countenance beyond measure turgid and suffused with blood; while the napkin in which it had been wrapped appeared nearly torn to pieces. The young men, however, spurred on by wrath, feared not, and inflicted a wound upon the senseless carcass, out of which incontinently flowed such a stream of blood, that it might have been taken for a leech filled with the blood of many persons. Then, dragging it beyond the village, they speedily constructed a funeral pile; and upon one of them saying that the pestilential body would not burn unless its heart were torn out, the other laid open its side by repeated blows of the blunted spade, and, thrusting in his hand, dragged out the accursed heart. This being torn piecemeal, and the body now consigned to the flames....

Notice how the Anglo-Saxon peasants removed the creature’s heart prior to immolation. A similar ritual would be performed again and again in New England, thus suggesting an ancestral link. William of Newburgh was not the only English author to speak of revenants. The Abbot of Burton, a churchman of likely Anglo-Saxon origin, wrote of an occult occurrence in 1090 in the Staffordshire village of Stapenhill. Two Anglo-Saxon peasants fled their native Burton for Drakelow, which was then ruled by a Norman baron named Roger. Roger helped the peasants to loot the abbey of Burton until Roger’s knights were defeated in battle by the abbey’s knights. Without warning, the two villagers who started the mess died. The following describes the reported haunting of the village:

…the very same day in which they were interred they appeared at evening, while the sun was still up, carrying on their shoulders the wooden coffins in which they had been buried. The whole following night they walked through the paths and fields of the village, now in the shape of men carrying wooden coffins on their shoulders, now in the likeness of bears or dogs or other animals. They spoke to the other peasants, banging on the walls of their houses and shouting “Move quickly, move! Get going! Come!”

For their blasphemy, the peasants returned to Earth as revenants, although those of a more residual character.

Not to be outdone, the Welsh chronicler Walter Map (1140-1210) recorded an account of a morally wicked Welshman who tormented the town of Hereford by chanting the names of those doomed to die of the plague. The man, it seems, was a revenant who had died at some undisclosed time.

While the gulf of centuries between these tales and the Great New England Vampire panic is large, it is not absurd to believe that the English settlers who built towns all across New England were familiar with revenant tales. These stories metastasized until finding firm soil in Rhode Island, Vermont, and elsewhere. This is not silly; early American literature, including Washington Irving and Charles Brockden Brown, began their careers by writing spooky stories that drew heavily from colonial American folktales. The most famous is Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” which casts a decapitated Hessian mercenary as an equestrian revenant. (It should be noted that Irving placed most of his ghost stories within the milieu of Dutch New York, rather than the more thoroughly Anglo-Saxon South or New England.) This only makes sense in a culture flush with memories of campfire tales.

Overall, the Great New England Vampire Panic can and should be seen as yet another Anglo-Saxon inheritance in America. Folktales and myths that began in medieval England, where the cultures of the Anglo-Saxons, Celts, and Norman conquerors commingled, found new ground in New England, and were carried on all the way into the first days of electricity. Again, as Lovecraft wrote in “Supernatural Horror in Literature,” there seems to be a strong thrust of the weird and macabre in Northern blood, and the stories with the most power in Early America were the dark tales of revenants and other figures of the night.

[i] Abigail Tucker, “The Great New England Vampire Panic,” Smithsonian, Oct. 2012,

<https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-great-new-england-vampire-panic-36482878/>.

[ii] Michael Ruane, “A ‘vampire’s’ remains were found about 30 years ago in Connecticut. Now DNA is giving him new life,” Washington Post, Jul. 31, 2019, < https://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-news-connecticut-vampire-20190731-oo4trsxg3vakflfiddzvipepri-story.html>.

[iii] Dale M. Brumfield, “An American Nosferatu,” Medium, Apr. 1, 2019, < https://medium.com/lessons-from-history/an-american-nosferatu-dc13b2f6ce80>.

[iv] Monica C. Witkowski and Caitlin Newman, “Witchcraft in Colonial Virginia,” www.encyclopedia.org, <https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/witchcraft-in-colonial-virginia/#:~:text=Though%20witchcraft%20cases%20in%20Virginia,defamation%20suits%20to%20criminal%20accusations>.

[v] Paul S. Sledzik and Nicolas Bellantoni, “Bioarcheological and Biocultural Evidence for the New England Vampire Folk Belief,” The American Journal of Physical Anthropology, No. 94 (1994).