Grimdark Magazine Issue #35
Author: Gemma Amor; Josh Rountree; Aliette de Bodard; Eric LaRocca; Caitlin Starling; Deborah Wolf; Aaron S. Jones; Beth Tabler
Date: 2023-06-30 05:00:00+00:00
Publisher: Grimdark Magazine

Dedication

Bobbie Eugene Scott

12/12/1936 - 06/17/23

I’ll see you again dad, one day, dancing amongst the star stuff.

Contents

From the Editor

Beth Tabler

Caver, Continue

Caitlin Starling

An Interview with Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Fabienne Schwizer

We Have Always been This Way

Eric LaRocca

Review: The Dead Take the A Train by Cassandra Khaw and Richard Kadrey

John Mauro

An Interview with Richard Kadrey

Beth Tabler and John Mauro

Review: The Militia House by John Milas

John Mauro

The Comfort in Horror

Aaron S. Jones

Review: The Vampires of El Norte by Isabel Cañas

John Mauro

An Interview with Carissa Orlando

Beth Tabler

Lullaby for A Lost World

Aliette de Bodard

Weird Horror

Deborah Wolf

Last Pale Light in the West

Josh Rountree

No Secrets Here

Gemma Amor

From the Editor

Beth Tabler

Some of my favorite books are terrifying. I started reading Stephen King at a way-too-early age, and it has indelibly affected how I like my stories: dark, gruesome, and grim. This month we set out to celebrate horror as a genre and feature stories that toe the line between grimdark and horror. These two genres often walk hand and hand, but instead of the good guys always winning, we have the stories of the morally gray.

As a child, horror novels became worn-out objects from the hours sitting under the covers with a flashlight. I watched Carrie be doused in pig's blood and lose her mind on her schoolmates, It instilled a fear of clowns, and Annie Wilkes taught me that sometimes horrors of the mind and the evil done by men are much scarier than a ghost or any vampire. Still, to this day, Annie Wilkes remains one of the most frightening characters I have ever read. There is something primal in fear, and reading it from the safe confines of a comfy chair while drinking tea allows us to stick our toes into the terrifying dark without being grabbed and hauled in.

Caitlin Starling, Eric LaRocca, Aliette de Bodard, Josh Rountree, and Gemma Amor have written stories that push the boundaries of fear and the uncomfortable. But we made sure to have stories that will satiate the grisliest grimdark lover. Take a trip with us into the terrifying worlds created by these talented storytellers.

Enjoy, and remember this adage, "Holy men tell us life is a mystery. They embrace that concept happily. But some mysteries bite and bark and come to get you in the dark." Cheers, and happy reading.

Beth Tabler

Editor

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Caver, Continue

Caitlin Starling

She’s watching him die.

The nameless, faceless voice on his comm has full access. Readouts of every vital sign, a camera in his helmet, and she’s up there, seeing it all. His shoulder strikes rock. Something cracks and it’s a wet, wet sound, not polycarbonate fracturing. He’s screaming, even as he’s trying to grab hold of something, anything, to keep him from being washed away in the relentless, overwhelming current. He is fighting for his life, and losing, and she’s watching.

She could help.

She isn’t going to.

There isn’t even a sharp inhale of breath over the comm, or a pointless alert flashing on his HUD. Just unintelligible chaos on his screen, sonar confused by silt and roaring water. But then, there: a scrap of orange, the computer’s desperate attempt to point out solid rock.

His foot catches on it half a second after it disappears from the screen, and his knee and hip burn. His suit shudders but the servos fire, and he’s able to slowly, slowly, crouch back against the current, making himself into a ball, scrabbling for more purchase. Sweat slides between his skin and the conductive gel he’s lived in for weeks now, making mucilaginous soup that tries to contract back to his skin with every twitch of his muscles. His shoulder’s busted, but he’s going to do this. He’s not going to die. And the voice on the comm can go—

His foot slips.

He reaches for a handhold with his bad arm.

The current takes him again.

And then the back of his head makes contact with another outcropping, and he stops thinking about anything.

* * *

28% CHARGE REMAINING

SIGNAL LOST

SIGNAL LOST

SIGNAL LOST

CAVER, RECONNECT

* * *

When Eli Abramsson took this job, he knew three things:

One, he would be supported by a surface team of professionals who would help manage his extensive mechanical suit while he mapped the cave system he would be descending through for the better part of a month.

Two, he was overqualified for what they were looking for. This is his tenth excursion. Nobody gets this far without being good and lucky. And so buried in debt that there’s no other option. If he could’ve, he would’ve gotten off-world years ago.

Three, the whole job was some shady shit. No mining concerns attached, no available casualty numbers, and a suit he recognized immediately as being an Arasgain Technologies model, with the logo blacked out. He’d worn one of these before, on a legitimate job that paid a third as much for a twice as long contract of service. At the time, it had been the best paying gig in town.

Which means this was always too good to be true.

* * *

He wakes up.

(Waking may be too generous a term. He can’t put together a coherent thought, not for some time. There’s an internal clock in his suit, but he can’t remember how to check it. He waits for a haze of analgesics, or a surge of energy courtesy of an epinephrine dose, but neither comes. Neither takes the pain away.)

He thinks he’s floating, but inside the hard carapace of his suit, there’s no way to tell without looking.

He can’t remember how to do that, either.

“Caver to base,” he mumbles, around the spike of pain filling his mouth and splitting through to the back of his skull. “Base, you sick fuck, are you there?”

The words slur and go unanswered.

* * *

SIGNAL LOST

CAVER, RECONNECT

The text glows, insistent, until he can understand it. His lungs give up guttural groans as he forces his muscles to twitch. The suit tries to stop him past a certain point and he fumbles through the display to toggle off the protective lock-up he’s in. He has to scroll through and sign a liability waiver to do it. Yes, he understands that he’s broken. Yes, he’s going to keep going.

The suit is broken too. Some of the liquid against his skin is blood, and sweat, and tears, but some of it is water.

It’s cold.

He needs to get to the surface.

* * *

(Get to the surface. Sunlight, fresh air, skin cancer, unlivable wages, an empty house, an empty bed, nobody cares that he’s down here anymore—

Surface of the water, Eli. The rest can come later.)

* * *

Something’s wrong with the sonar suite. Some emitter got crushed, or maybe without a topside computer to help the rendering, his suit can’t keep up. Everything keeps glitching in loud sprays of rainbow artifacts, beautifully rendered and completely unhelpful. Wherever he is, the silt has settled and the currents are gentle, and that’s the only reason he’s able to navigate at all.

Maybe he should turn it all off. Maybe he should switch on a light. Fuck it—what’s going to come get him out of the dark? If it weren’t for the water, he’d rip the faceplate off his suit and—

No. The suit’s going to keep him alive. He needs to rely on it, let it do what it was built to do. It’s the only ally he has left.

He finds the setting to administer morphine. He gives himself the smallest possible dose.

* * *

19% CHARGE REMAINING

Is he losing time? He could’ve sworn he was at 23%.

* * *

He crawls instead of swims. The screen says he’s moving parallel to the bottom, but the water erases orientation even more than caves usually do. Up is down is left is right. He picks one plane and tries to stick with it, praying his sensors will show a surface before the rebreather on his back can’t keep up anymore. Before the suit loses power and seizes up, suffocating him, entombing him.

* * *

14% CHARGE REMAINING

His screen is a bright sheet of pink, and then his helmet breaks through from water to air, and his lungs burn as if he’s half-drowned. He staggers, finally on two feet again, into a world of pillars beneath a vaulted cavern. His battery life jumps, and he opens his faceplate to breathe, breathe, breathe.

And then he screams, because he can’t keep it in anymore.

The sound echoes across a glowing landscape, an underground lake, a natural marvel, a beautiful bower he could lay down and die in, but he’s not going to. He’s not going to, because when he fits his faceplate back in place, he can see faint traces that point to previous cavers. Previous cavers mean base ran supplies here, too, once upon a time, and that means:

Climb.

* * *

He leaves two batteries in the cache he finds, because base is going to send somebody else down one day.

* * *

Eli’s not the first. He figured that out early, before he realized there was only one person up at base. There was the obvious evidence: anchors still in place, some on routes his HUD flagged as decommissioned. And then there was the way base had never been surprised at anything he reported. How base knew the route, no hesitation.

After he’d realized there was no shift relief for the voice on his comm, he’d laid awake at night trying to figure her out. Stupid? Obsessive? Maybe some trial of an AI, one that wouldn’t need to sleep, but surely that would’ve been in his contract, right? Somebody would’ve told him, he would’ve needed to give feedback. Right?

But he took the money. He’s had employers before with kinks, employers who liked to lock his suit and watch him squirm. Cavers are the most well-trained victims on the whole planet. Sign the contract and bend over. If you’re lucky and you don’t die, and you don’t have inherited medical bills piled so high you’ll never have a chance of getting out from under them, maybe one day you’ll earn a better life.

When he started prying about the job, about the cave itself over the next week, as he traversed from camp to camp, directed along the route like an automaton, the woman without a name had shut him down. Showed him his contract. Responded to his decision to take a break (a decision he is more than capable of making on his own) with a shot of epinephrine to get him moving again.

“Caver, continue,” she’d said, in that infuriatingly unflappable, shit-eating voice, because—

Because she knew.

She knew the risks, and she still sent him into that sump, and then she sat back and watched him almost die without lifting a finger to help.

* * *

87% CHARGE REMAINING

He can’t hear his own heartbeat. The roar of the waterfall he just climbed is still hammering into him as he slides on his belly into a crack. The weight of a planet is above him, straining to crush him. He squirms, squirms, squirms.

The inside of the world isn’t built for people. Isn’t made for them. Doesn’t fit them.

Eli makes himself fit.

* * *

SIGNAL LOST

SIGNAL LOST

SIGNAL LOST

CAVER, RECONNECT

He can’t get that alert to turn off, but it’s reassuring. Proof base can’t get to him. Proof he’s on his own, and he’s better off this way. She can’t tell him what to do, can’t hijack his biology, his brain. He’s the only one giving himself drugs. The only one deciding when to move and when to rest. There’s no whispering in his ear, no monitoring from far away, no—

SIGNAL RESTORED

RECONNECTING

RECONNECTING

“No,” he hisses, and punches the rock above him, jams his elbow into a crevice that doesn’t want to let go. He grits his teeth against the pain and searches through options, his head hurts so much and he won’t, he won’t, he won’t—

There’s another channel.

He switches to it. Best case scenario, it’s another local concern who can guide him out. Worst case, it’s nothing.

A soft shushing sound curls into his helmet, wordless, and he collapses with relief, boneless beneath rock.

* * *

The suit is still broken. His head still aches. His shoulder is still busted. His stomach screams for food, and he tries to feed himself, afraid the tube into his gut has been dislodged. It works.

The sonar keeps glitching, pulling at the world around him, but he’s getting used to it.

* * *

The only thing that says this route goes anywhere is the battery cache he found—how long has it been?

68% CHARGE REMAINING

Long enough.

Every step since then has been a guess. He’s been rewarded, here and there. Old bits of gear. Scrapes on the rock. But it’s not until he slithers out into another cavern, one he recognizes, that he knows he’s going to make it.

The equipment cache, fresh and full to bursting, is right where he stashed it, across what now feels like horribly open space. The world lurches in rainbow strobe as he clambers over what his surface brain says must be a floor, but is only down, is only uneven terrain to put his feet on. There’s a shower of pink sparks at the corner of his vision, and he flinches, spinning to look at it, chasing it helplessly.

Wedged beneath a rock, hidden from the route he took in and out of this cavern the first time he came this way, is a body.

He doesn’t touch it. Can’t touch it. He recognizes the plate style and what the shattered wreckage of what were once legs must mean, and he vomits, too fast to get his faceplate all the way off. The suit whirs into action, trying to clean up the filth. He wants to tear his skin off.

Base killed this other caver. A terrible fall and now hidden so people like him don’t see it, don’t get too suspicious. Here the whole time, and he never saw it.

Did base confuse his sensors? Play a game of keep away?

She enjoyed it. He knows that now. She brings them down here, and she watches them die, watches to see how far they get, maybe mixes up skill levels and starting information and all the little variables to figure out what breaks people best.

He can smell rot, faint and terrible, and closes the faceplate of his suit again. He takes a good, long look at the three routes he knows: the way he came, a path down a long, long cliff to where base tried to take him, and the way back up.

She knows all of them. The comm’s empty static laps against his eardrums.

He takes the supplies with him and starts looking for another way out, with apologies for the next person base sends down here to die. But maybe it will save their life; maybe it will force base to turn back.

Or maybe it’ll just kill whoever it is a little faster.

* * *

Even with the suit, with a full set of supplies, his body has limits. He sleeps, curled up on the path back to the waterfall, where he thinks base won’t come looking for him. He never stops there again. Staying in one place makes his skin crawl.

(Or maybe that’s an infection, spreading from the crack in his suit.)

When his body is exhausted but he can’t sleep for flinching at the dark, he pictures what he’s going to do to base once he gets back topside. It doesn’t matter that he’ll probably never find her, or the lab she’s holed up in; it doesn’t matter that everything she’s done has been entirely, disgustingly legal. He pictures shoving her into this suit, this exact one, hooking up skin and blood to its polymer and wires, and tossing her down the nearest hole.

* * *

He marks time with suit alerts and the meaningless wash of sound in his ears.

43% CHARGE REMAINING

The planet refuses to create a path.

37% CHARGE REMAINING

He hasn’t found a way out.

25% CHARGE REMAINING

He may never find a way out.

12% CHARGE REMAINING

Maybe he should run for it, back the way he came. There’s a chance she won’t be watching.

CAVER, SWAP TO BACKUP

He hears it in base’s voice, the words rubbing his gray matter raw, but he does as he’s told.

* * *

And then he sees the other caver.

He’s circling back to Camp Four, still uncertain, still furious, and at first he doesn’t believe it. Wouldn’t be the first time his brain constructed a figure out of the rainbow surf of visual distortions on his screen. But it is the first one that stays. Another human figure, wearing a suit like his, standing in the cavern that contains Camp Four, that used to contain the cache. Another figure, standing where the dead body is. Staring at it.

Run, he wants to tell it. Get out while you still can.

But when he tries to open his faceplate, to speak to it in a way maybe base won’t hear, won’t notice, but the suit refuses.

* * *

How long has he been down here?

Long enough for base to find another victim.

* * *

He follows at a safe distance. But the suit is breaking down. Batteries and food don’t count for enough, not after being dragged through a sump, half-drowned, made to walk and climb for days and days. Weeks? His head should’ve healed, but the headaches keep coming, and his ears ring constantly. His shoulder hasn’t healed either.

(Get out, he tells himself, get out, base is looking the other way.)

It’s the perfect opportunity. It’s his last chance. Don’t be a fucking martyr, Eli.

* * *

He follows, taking his original route down the cliff into the bowels of this hellhole, just out of sight of the other caver. Base is keeping them apart. Base isn’t letting the new caver, the sacrifice, see what Eli built. But the sacrifice has seen the dead. The sacrifice knows something is wrong. It staggers out into a field of fungus, glowing in the dark. He can see the aquamarine phosphorescence through the cracks in his faceplate.

How long have those been there?

He can feel cold air on his cheeks. This isn’t the path he remembers, isn’t the cave he remembers. He sees the sacrifice off ahead, furtive and frightened, running. It takes shelter in the cenote, one of the last places Eli felt in control of himself, down on a raft bobbing on the water.

Eli hangs back and claws at his helmet. His fingertips catch in the faceplate fractures. He peels, and peels, and peels until it splits.

The world goes dark, save for the soft blue glow.

It’s a risk, breathing in the cold cavern air, but it’s worth it if he can warn the sacrifice.

But when he peeks over the edge of the cenote, he can’t be sure it isn’t base staring back at him.

He turns tail and runs.

* * *

Eli is a martyr and a coward and a fool.

* * *

He has grown so used to the sparks and shimmers of sonar breakdown that he doesn’t know how to handle the deep black of the underground. Without the screen, he can’t find the toggle for his headlamp. And even if he could, he fears what might see him. But he needs something, if he’s going to get up, get out. If he’s going to use the last of his strength and warmth to erase his fuck up.

He had his chance. He gave it up. He needs to steal it back.

So he crushes the fungus between his fingers and smears it over his hands, his feet. The glow persists. Spores surge up and slide into his nose, his mouth, his eyes. He can see.

He can see.

* * *

He climbs into the glittering dark. One hand at a time, over and over. His injured shoulder has gone numb, and he works around the dead weight of that arm. He’s not sure anymore that it even exists, except for when it blocks his path.

* * *

He climbs because that’s all he’s good for.

* * *

Is he dreaming when he reaches the top of the cliff? He must be; he is weightless now, and everything is easy. It’s not supposed to be easy. Life is not easy. But he moves, fluid and ghostly and gentle, until he reaches where he left his cache. There’s still food there (food? Not really, it’s nutrient sludge; it coats his stomach, his intestines, gets transmuted into shit and fed back out another tube; why did he ever let them do this to him?) and batteries and a few scraps of rope and other detritus of his short, laughable life. Life spent sliding through dark landscapes that were not built for him, that he does not belong in, alone except for voices in his ear, and, once, somebody waiting for him topside.

That hasn’t been true for a long time now, though. That’s how base got him. Desperate and grieving and with nothing else he was good at.

But base is going in deeper. She’s tethered to that suit down below, down there, diving into the water, heading to its death. And if base comes up here again? If she gives chase, if she saw Eli and realized her mistake?

Well, base is looking for his suit.

He doesn’t need the suit.

Not anymore.

* * *

His fingers weren’t meant to pry loose the feeding tube or his ostomy. His anatomy screams at him. He screams back.

The walls shiver.

* * *

The cave is cold without the shell around him, and he is more injured than he realized. No meds anymore to dull the edges. No exoskeleton to help support him. But the abyssal darkness of the cave is no longer a barrier to him. He sees through his hands, his shins, his toes. His cheek, pressed to stone. To take the way out—the way he came, when he was young and foolish—he will need to climb down. Just a little bit down. Down, then up again, and up, and up, and—

But he finds water when he descends. Water that shouldn’t be there, that wasn’t there before.

Base has changed the cave. Or is it the rumbling in the walls, the crash of stone echoing far off, the pounding in his head?

He retreats. He tries again. He finds another anchor, another rope, no virgin stone for him, and he begins to descend.

* * *

This shaft is too deep. But he knows he has come this way before. He’s been every way before. One of them is going to take him out, and the sun will warm his shivering, crawling flesh. He finds another rope, and tries again, but this one is wrong, too.

He is so tired, and so numb, and sometimes, he wonders if he ever really spoke to base at all.

If he has ever seen the sun before.

The rope tops out at a ledge, and he pulls himself onto it, swaying, shaking. He hasn’t eaten in what’s probably been days, though days ceased to have meaning long ago. There’s only the exhaustion of his body, and the fear and relief each time he falls asleep, unsure of if he’ll wake again. The pain in him, reminding him that he’s still alive.

Because for all that he can see the cave, he cannot see himself. He can only feel, and feel, and—

Light pierces his brain.

It makes him retreat, uncomprehending, overwhelmed. It’s not bright, not strong, but it is, it exists, and he has not seen light like this in an eternity. It’s coming from something that makes noise. Footsteps. Footsteps, and the light approaching, and then the silhouette of a hand cuts through it.

He falls back off the ledge, his jury-rigged harness only barely catching him. He slides so far before he can arrest himself, his whole body quaking. The light goes out, as if it never was.

“Hello?”

A woman’s voice echoes through the shaft.

Base.

Base?

No, he doesn’t know this voice and he doesn’t understand when it says a name that isn’t his. “Isolde?” the woman in the suit says, and Eli would cry, but there’s not enough moisture in him, and all his remaining strength is going into keeping himself still on the rope as it gently sways to a stop. He strains to see this other person, this other caver.

(But base can see you too, if she can.)

He doesn’t care anymore.

He is so tired. So cold. His paranoia has grown blunt without warmth to hone it. And he is not alone, not anymore, not ever again. If he just climbs up—

If he just tries to speak—

But the walls are shaking again, and he can hear nothing but the grind of stone on stone, and a faint pinging ring that he knows can’t be real. Hallucinatory sonar. It’s imperceptible; but then, so are the sparks he’s seen ever since inhaling the spores.

Those are gone now, obliterated by the light. By the voice.

“Please,” he tries to say. He wants to send it up along the rope. He’s swung out away from the wall, and there are no handholds. “Please, please bring me out.” Because she’s going out, she must be. She went down into the cave and now she’s coming out again. They have been like ships passing in the night, so close, so close, so—

The rope snaps.

* * *

The impact doesn’t hurt. Soft fungus cushions him even as his bones break, his breath ceases. Battered faces watch him, hands with cracked and torn nails cradle him, and they whisper, stay.

There are so many of them down here with him. There is no electric light. No hunger. No cold. Only the deep and the dark and them: the other bodies in bases’s wake.

She has made for them a home.

Caitlin Starling is the nationally bestselling author of The Death of Jane Lawrence (2021), as well as the Bram Stoker-nominated and LOHF award-winning The Luminous Dead (2019). Her other works of genre-hopping horror and speculative fiction include Yellow Jessamine and a novella in the Vampire: The Masquerade collection, Walk Among Us. Her nonfiction has appeared in Nightmare, Uncanny, and Nightfire. Caitlin also works in narrative design, and has been paid to invent body parts. She’s always on the lookout for new ways to inflict insomnia.

Caitlin is represented by Caitlin McDonald at Donald Maass Literary Agency.

An Interview With Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Fabienne Schwizer

Silvia Moreno-Garcia, author of books including Mexican Gothic, The Daughter of Doctor Moreau and Untamed Shore, is one of the most interesting and versatile authors working today. No two books of hers are alike, hopping genre and styles while consistently writing stories of highest quality. Her books are often set in or heavily influenced by her native Mexico, which is the case with her latest book, occult thriller Silver Nitrate, releasing in July. We’ve been able to catch up with Silvia Moreno-Garcia about Silver Nitrate, writing, creativity and classic horror films.

[GdM] Can you start us off by introducing Silver Nitrate in a one sentence pitch?

[SMG] It’s a novel of supernatural suspense set in 1993 about two friends who stumble onto a mysterious film that might be cursed.

[GdM] Every one of your books is utterly different from the last. What is the draw to you as an author to keep reinventing yourself?

[SMG] I get bored. I have a short attention span. I also like to experiment and try different writing modes. I hate staying still.

[GdM] I have noticed that a theme in all of your books is that they feature female main characters who are overlooked and angry in some way. Is there a particular reason why you’re attracted to writing this sort of protagonist?

[SMG] I wouldn’t say this applies to all my main characters. I’ve written nine novels and two novellas and there are a range of experiences reflected in the pages of my books. For Montserrat, I wanted to reflect some of the feelings of my mother, who worked in radio back in the day and had to develop a tough shell to survive the sexist landscape of the times.

[GdM] As an immigrant constantly switching back and forth between two languages myself, I have been wondering about your writing process. All of your books are incredibly rooted in Mexico, in a Spanish-speaking culture—which you’re writing and publishing about in English. How do you process language during your writing?

[SMG] I don’t want to write books that are filled with italics, where every other sentence a character yells “Dios mio!” I want it to be a seamless experience where the Mexico you enter is not an exotic Other locale but an everyday place with its special quirks and history.

[GdM] Do your stories ever surprise you during the writing and editing process?

[SMG] Novels need a more robust skeleton before I begin writing them, so often the big surprises come in short stories. There are obviously details that change as you move along, which is part of the organic process of writing. There is an element of flexibility and rigidity that needs to be present. You don’t want to choke the element of discovery, but if you have no idea where you are headed it can be harder to find your footing.

[GdM] Thinking about Silver Nitrate in particular, what was a detail that really stood out to you during your research and what do you wish you could have included but weren’t able to?

[SMG] It has a lot of info packed about occultism and film, but I could have included more of either element. One thing I didn’t include was the existence of the Landig Group. This was an occultist group formed in 1950 that gathered in Vienna. Its founder was a former SS member who revived the mythology of Thule and who spouted bizarre racist ideas (Nazis under the ice!). I wanted to include some of this, but I thought perhaps the parallels with my fictional occultist were a bit too blunt and obvious. It was this type of person who served as the prototype for my villain.

[GdM] Let’s talk classic horror films. Which one has the best Silver Nitrate vibes, and who would you cast as Montserrat—if the film was made in 1993?

[SMG] I wouldn’t be able to cast anyone. Montserrat is described as a dark-skinned Mexican woman and the colorism present at the time would have prevented actresses from embodying the role. When an illustrator asked me what she should look like, I said Yalitza Aparicio. But realistically women like Yalitza hardly get leading roles even nowadays.

As for classic horror films, I like slow, quiet horror films, but some of the elements of Silver Nitrate are a homage to the violent imagery of Dario Argento and the Hammer Films of the 1960s.

[GdM] Can you tell us anything about what genre you’ll be tackling next?

[SMG] It’s a historical novel titled The Seventh Veil of Salome about the making of a sword-and-sandals 1950s film.

[GdM] What books or other media have been filling your creative well recently?

[SMG] I took an online course on opera and I’ve become more interested in this type of theater. It plays a role in my next novel.

Review: Silver Nitrate by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Fabienne Schwizer

Once more, Silvia Moreno-Garcia reinvents herself. Silver Nitrate is an ode to classic horror films, to the darker side of cinema—and to the darker parts of twentieth century history. As is par for the course with Moreno-Garcia’s books, Silver Nitrate too is set in Mexico. Or more precisely, in Mexico City’s film industry in the 1990s. Centred around Montserrat, a dark-skinned sound editor in her late thirties, and her friend, Tristán, a soap opera star whose time in the limelight had long since faded, this story weaves occultist tales, fugitive Nazis and the making of horror films into an unforgettable story.

When Abel Urueta, cult horror director—and Tristán’s new neighbour—recruits Montserrat and Tristán to help him complete a mysterious film, they don’t know what they’re in for. Abel Urueta is sure the unfinished project has cursed his career. He is now desperate to complete it, consequences be damned, for the slightest hope at lifting the curse he believes on himself. And so, despite tales of the volatile silver nitrate stock it has been filmed and stored on having been steeped with dark magic by a Nazi occultist, they begin work on the missing scenes…

With Silver Nitrate, Silvia Moreno-Garcia once again writes herself to the summit of a new genre. After having brought readers to the island of Doctor Moreau in her retelling of the classic and writing a brilliant noir in Untamed Shore for her last two releases, this is a straight up occult horror thriller. Written with a great instinct for tension and pacing, Silver Nitrate draws the reader in and truly immerses them into its version of 1990s Mexico. But these books don’t just switch genre. The voice and style of writing adapts with them. And that is what makes Moreno-Garcia such an impressive author—her versatility, her ability to switch voices like a chameleon switches colour.

Silver Nitrate particularly stands out from her body of work for a Grimdark audience due to its themes and characters. Unsettling and haunting, with a villain evil both on an uncanny and a very real level—a Nazi fugitive who ended up in Mexico—and characters who are stuck in their own mindsets, making them less than morally upstanding as a rule. The characters are complex, and grow even more so over the course of the book. Montserrat stood out especially, as a woman making her way in a man’s world, while also being a more mature character—she is in her late thirties, rather than her twenties as many heroines are—and not conforming to the beauty standards dominant around her. She is pure perseverance and good at her job, determined to make herself heard, which makes her a great character to root for throughout the events of the book.

As a whole, Silver Nitrate came together as a haunting story with evocative atmosphere and Moreno-Garcia’s usual attention to detail and strong characters. The inclusion of silver nitrate itself as a core element of the story was a great way to tie together the different elements of the plot. Highly recommended.

We Have Always Been This Way

Eric LaRocca

“Don’t move,” Karofsky shouts, flashing the hunter’s knife at her. “Show me your hands.”

The young woman—appearing not much older than twenty—doesn’t seem to panic the way others might have in his presence. She remains kneeling in the center of the faintly lit space, slowly lifting her arms above her head until he’s certain that she poses no immediate threat. Or rather, no immediate threat for now. Karofsky knows full well how poisonous, how utterly shameful the weak are when they are cornered, when they are quite certain that the hammer is about to finally come down.

“Nothing here,” she says.

“Shut your mouth,” he growls, removing his blood-rinsed goggles and lumbering further into the cellar.

He pivots, surveying the area.

“Anybody else about—?”

But she won’t answer him for some inexplicable reason. Whether she’s terrified of him or merely guarded, he cannot be certain.

“Well—?”

“Only rats,” the young woman hisses, shoving a jeweled pacifier into her mouth.

“Fuck is that?” Karofsky asks, squinting at her. Then he laughs from deep inside his belly. “Missing mama’s tit?”

The young woman winces, seeming a little embarrassed.

“I need it for my jaw,” she tells him, her eyes rolling to the back of her head as if she was possessed by some otherworldly, divine force. “It’s a—precautionary—measure. So that I don’t accidentally swallow my tongue.”

“Coming down from your latest high?”

“Almost. Want some—? It’s good shit.”

“What of?” Karofsky asks.

“Her name’s Molly,” she tells him, closing her eyes.

“Never tried getting high before.”

“Pity,” she says. “I’m Queen of the Clouds.”

Karofsky laughs a little, enough to make her smile. “I thought our troops would have lit coals beneath anything that moved. They must’ve missed you. Are they still here?”

Once again, she won’t answer him.

“Hey,” he shouts at her. “Are they still here—?”

“You’re the first person I’ve seen since—”

He leans forward, annoyed. “Since when?”

“Since the troops moved on,” she tells him.

Karofsky scowls in agony, visibly distressed by the massive lump on his back.

“How long since they’ve been gone?” he asks.

“Are you alright?” she asks, straightening to approach him.

“Stay back,” he orders, flashing the edge of his knife at her and with a look of fear in his eyes that immediately surprises her. “How long?”

“I don’t know,” she tells him. “Maybe an hour. Two at most.”

Her glare lingers a little too long for his comfort and he winces as if he was a reprimanded schoolboy.

“You don’t look well,” she says.

“Shut up.”

Karofsky circles the room like a predator on the hunt. Gripping the knife, he leans toward her once more and asks her if she has any food to spare.

She glances at him, bewildered.

“You’ve got fucking food or not?” he asks.

The young woman reaches into her pocket and finds a half-eaten heel of bread. She holds it out for Karofsky to take.

“It’s the last of it,” she tells him, wiping some of the black soot from her face.

Karofsky snatches the bread from her hands and begins gobbling it up. His knife’s aim on her gradually weakens while he gorges himself, grunting like a wild beast while he feeds.

“Stinks down here,” he says, stuffing more bread into his mouth.

“Better than out there.”

“Smells like burned flesh,” he says, his face souring at the pungent odor.

“I’m used to the scent. Sometimes it smells like jasmine and lavender to me.”

Karofsky senses his lips crease with a smile. He can’t tell if she’s joking or not. For a moment, he thinks. He knows just what to say to rattle her.

“There’s a young kid outside. Lying in his own shit, a glittering vertebra poking up between its shoulders.”

“Stop,” she begs him.

“Can’t tell if it’s girl or boy.”

He chuckles, as if genuinely amused by the crude recollection of the poor thing’s exploded sex.

“Does it even matter?” she asks him.

Karofsky shrugs, supposing that the young woman is somewhat correct in her assessment. “Dead meat now,” he sighs. “I guess you’re right.”

“You know, the allies are coming,” she says, glancing away from him and up at the small window fixed near the cellar’s ventilation shaft. “Ones from the West.”

Karofsky shakes his head. “They’ll never break through.”

“They’ll bring rebirth with them. We’ll have a place to go.”

For a moment, Karofsky watches a look of hope flicker across the young woman’s face until she shrinks back into darkness like a fortune teller at a crowded nighttime bazaar.

“We won’t let them,” he says, shoveling more of the bread into his mouth and swallowing.

“Have you been up to the second principality yet?” the young woman asks him.

“Just came from there.”

“Are they well?” she asks.

“Putting out the fires now probably,” he says, chewing with his mouth open.

Her eyes squint at him. “Fires?”

“That’s the one thing that faggots and trannies are good for: burning.” He licks his fingers. Then, when finished, he eyes the young woman as if expecting something. “Any more—?”

The young woman merely shakes her head, eyes avoiding him at all costs.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he says to her.

“You don’t expect me to believe that?”

Karofsky lowers the knife. “Where’s the rest of the food you’re hiding?”

The young woman won’t answer. Karofsky raises the knife to her face. She reaches into her burlap sack and draws out her remaining loaf of bread.

Karofsky takes the bread and starts to gobble it down.

“See?” he says. “You lied.”

He stops before finishing the bread and catches the hunger reflecting in the poor young woman’s eyes. He offers her what’s left but she shakes her head and waves him away. The hunchback soldier finishes the bread.

“I won’t hurt you as long as you do as I say and give me what I need,” Karofsky says. “I need to see the surgeon. I need to find him. Where is he?”

“There’s nothing else left,” she tells him.

“Dishonesty again.”

“Look for yourself,” she says.

“Where is he?”

“Who—?”

“You know,” Karofsky says. “The surgeon. Your boss, I take it?”

“There’s nobody here.”

Without hesitating, Karofsky pushes the edge of the knife against the young woman’s throat.

“Papers,” he demands.

“What?”

“Now.”

The young woman reaches into her pocket and retrieves several crumpled papers. She hands them to Karofsky. He goes over them, squinting as he refers to her unusual name: Lady Zero.

“Expired three months ago,” he says, tossing the papers back to her. “Lady Zero. You’re hiding him.”

“You want to kill him too, I imagine?”

“I want him alive. I need him…”

“You’ll be disappointed,” Lady Z says.

“I’ll find him.”

“He’s dead.”

Karofsky turns, surprised for a moment. Then his eyes narrow at her, as if he could pluck out the rotted root of deceit spreading within her with his bare hands.

“We cut out the tongues of liars,” he says. “Faggot or not. Of course, we prefer to annihilate the fags. They’re the reason we started this damn civil war in the first place.”

It’s then that Karofsky notices the rusted blood browning on the poor young woman’s clothes. He recoils slightly at the sight.

“They killed him,” she says.

“They—?”

“I watched. Careful not to be seen,” she tells him. “They cut out his tongue first. I would have delighted in doing that to him too. I watched him fidget just like those young men he’d make me procure for private nighttime companionship.”

“He did that—?”

“You’re surprised? They were young beggars, mostly. He’d give them foods or treats in exchange for their services.”

“I heard he was talented when it came to surgery and body modifications,” Karofsky says. “But I didn’t know he was a pervert.”

“Funny how even you and your fellow soldiers knew of his talent,” Lady Z says, chuckling as if amused.

“I’ve seen his work,” Karofsky says. “We arrested a young dyke up north with the most remarkably sutured wounds. She told us she’d been here before we pulled her teeth out. All our men agreed his work outshined most of our medics.”

“That’s why your contemporaries came to engage him,” Lady Z explains. “He cared not for your comrades’ administration. Wanted nothing to do with them, their platform, or their money.”

“Idiot,” Karofsky wheezes, coughing. “Could’ve at least pretended.”

“Even he had principles.”

“Faggot lover,” Karofsky whispers.

“You look discouraged,” she says, eyes narrowing to slits almost as if she had uncovered some horrible secret about him. “You came to see him? You wanted his help?”

Karofsky pockets the knife, folding his arms.

“I thought perhaps you had come to see something else,” Lady Z says.

Of course, his curiosity begins to stir. He leans forward silently begging her to continue.

“The—obscenities,” she tells him. “News travels fast.”

“Of what?” he asks.

“Monsters,” Lady Z whispers. “He invented them just as you and your brethren do. The only difference is you invent them with your mouths. He created them with his hands. Of course, he shined at conventional surgery. He also fancied himself an aspiring chemist. Human experimentation was his strength. The more reluctant ones were administered a serum that paralyzed the muscles but preserved the nervous system.”

“He tortured.”

Lady Z grimaces at the awful word. “He preferred the term modified. He perverted bodies with chemicals and saws and drills until the resolve in their extremities was more tenuous, more delicate than the state of our poor country, if that’s even conceivable to you.”

“Where are they?” Karofsky asks, looking about the cellar.

“Gone,” she says. “Except for one. That’s why I thought you came. He never recovered the very last experiment so that he could incinerate it.”

Karofsky’s ears perk at the noise of distant gunfire.

“What was it?” he asks.

“I never saw it. Pray you don’t either.”

“What?”

“One of his… mistakes,” Lady Z says. “He told me he had developed some kind of a chemical. He was going to use it to cripple your contingencies when they called on him again.”

“Fuck off.”

“He needed a guinea pig, though. He had me recruit a young boy. Maybe sixteen or seventeen. Hunched over. Stomach bloated from hunger. He said that it didn’t even resemble the young thing it had once been. All of its hair fell out first. Then bones disconnected from one another. Its spine disbanded until the poor, wretched thing could do nothing but crawl about on its belly.”

“You’re goading me,” Karofsky says, glancing around the cellar in the dark corners where walls meet.

“It even sprouted eye stalks, he said. Its skin became hard like the outer casing of a shell. Evolution in reverse. Back to zero. He was frightened of it, convinced it was still about.”

“Still down here—?” Karofsky asks, head swiveling around and searching the room for a visible sign of the sickening creature.

“I’ve heard its wet slithering in the dark below,” Lady Z says. “He said the tongue was the only fault.”

Karofsky leans forward again, impatient. “What about it—?”

Lady Z seems to shudder, clearly disturbed by the recollection. “He told me all muscles and organs flourished. Except for the tongue. The tongue rotted and fell out of its mouth.”

“You’re still tripping.”

“I hope I never see it,” she tells him.

“Where’s the body?”

“I told you. I’ve never seen it.”

“The doctor,” Karofsky demands.

“Burned,” she says. “There’s a furnace down below.”

“He’s not been cut up into pieces and stuffed in that small bag that’s glued to you—?”

Lady Z cowers, coveting her small satchel. “Go down and see if you don’t believe me.”

“What have you got in there?”

“None of your business,” she barks at him.

“If it’s remnants of a traitor, then they’re the government’s property.”

“It’s mine.”

Karofsky swings at the bag. “Hand him over. His remains are my responsibility.”

“It’s my property. It belongs to my second birth,” she says, skirting away.

“Second birth—?”

“Small personal artifacts of sentimental value,” she explains to him. “Pictures of my son. My engagement ring. Various relics to prepare me for my new flesh and remind me of the life I was to leave behind. I was to shed my skin the way a snake does. You do it, too. When you take off that uniform. You become somebody else. Everybody is someone else.”

“Hand it over,” he growls at her.

But she resists again.

“No,” she whispers. “I was to be born again. Body-wise. Not spirit. My first life’s cradle was linen and cloth. My midwife was compassion and kindness. But the ornament between my legs never agreed and short circuited with the billions of nerve cells inside my head. I wanted to be born a second time. I had imagined it. My bassinet was to be a cold operating table. My father was to be a retractor that loosened tissue and my mother was to be a small tube that carried fluids from one end to the other. And he was to be my midwife.”

Her hands wander down between her thighs.

“But things changed,” she tells him.

Karofsky shakes his head in disbelief. “What does that mean—? You were a—?”

“I am a woman,” Lady Z says. Her voice does not tremble. “I’ve always been this way. All of us—we have always been this way. Even though you and your troops hate us and want to destroy us. We have always been this way.”

Without warning, Karofsky lunges at Lady Z and grabs at the area between her thighs, cackling. She cries out, surprised, as she lurches back.

“That seems to disagree. It’s as big as mine!”

He roars with a hateful, cruel laugh.

Lady Z grabs hold of his hands and forces them on her breasts. He jerks away, sickened by her very touch.

“Sex is between the legs,” she tells him. “Gender is between the ears. It’s my sex that’s merely a work in progress. I gather you’ve never been as close as you are right now to somebody like me.”

Karofsky flashes a hideous smile at her. “Not without a tomahawk. Government orders. Your kind don’t deserve a cock.”

“The cleansing made the decision for me. I saw friends burned, eyes gouged out, limbs torn off.”

Karofsky senses his face thaw with a smile. “Our soldiers are exceptional.”

“I’ve heard some of the insurgents are even better,” Lady Z says, as if hoping it might dismantle some of his arrogance, his unconvincing pride.

She seems surprised when he winces, as if pained once more by the massive lump on his back.

“Maybe,” he says.

“Either way, your fag-hating associates seemed to delight in the complexity of my anatomy,” Lady Z tells him.

Karofsky looks at her, distrustful. He can scarcely believe what she’s saying.

“They would never.”

Lady Z simpers, as if genuinely amused by his naïveté. “Their sexual appetites paid for most of my hormone therapy.”

“But your kid…” Karofsky begins to ask before his voice trails off with a threat of uncertainty.

Lady Z’s head lowers, her eyes avoiding Karofsky at all costs.

“He’s with his mother,” she tells him. “He’s only ten months old.”

Then she opens the small satchel and pulls out a tiny blue handkerchief.

“I keep this with me,” she tells him. “He wears the red one embroidered with his initials I left with him.”

“Up in the Second Quadrant?” Karofsky asks her.

Lady Z merely nods.

“There’s not much left up there,” he says, starting to withdraw and make his way toward the stairwell leading out of the cellar.

“Wait,” Lady Z calls out to him. “You’re not going to…? I told you—”

Karofsky shakes his head. “I wouldn’t have hurt your—friend either. Even if he was a pervert.”

Lady Z’s eyes seem to widen when she realizes. “You did want his help.”

Just then, Karofsky stumbles and catches himself on one of the tables arranged in the corner of the room near the doorway. Out of his peripheral vision, he notices Lady Z approaching him.

“I can dress a wound,” she tells him.

Karofsky shakes his head, groaning. “It’s not a wound.”

“You couldn’t go to your own medics?” Lady Z asks him.

“And be reprimanded for the mistake?” he asks. “They don’t know I’m here. They’d torture me worse than those cocksuckers did.”

“What mistake?” Lady Z asks him.

Karofsky swallows nervously. He coughs, clearing the catch in his throat.

“Weakness,” he tells her. “Allowing those—faggot-lovers to…”

Lady Z searches his face for an explanation, unable to comprehend.

Karofsky strains to reach around behind his back and swat on the lump arranged beneath his uniform coat, but he can’t.

“We set off a bomb on the side of the road,” he explains. “They said I killed a child, so they stitched a reminder onto me.”

“What?”

Karofksy nearly retches at the recollection. “I can’t look. I think the thing they stitched onto me was breathing before. It’s stopped now.”

Lady Z flinches, visibly hesitant to approach him any further. “Something alive—?”

Karofsky doubles over, nearly about to vomit. “It hurts.”

“I can cut it off.”

“You can?”

“On one condition,” Lady Z tells him.

“Yes,” he says.

“You get me out of here.”

Karofsky closes his eyes and inhales deeply, wishing she had never asked.

“I can’t,” he says.

“I’d be killed if I go out there on my own,” she says to him. “Or worse, I’ll be wounded and captured. Your superiors would be overjoyed to uncover my delicate condition.”

Karofsky merely shrugs. “They’d keep you alive.”

“Yes. At a work camp,” she says. “They’d try to leak the queerness from my head to my feet. You must promise me…”

Karofsky shakes his head. “I can’t go back up there.”

“The border’s only an hour away,” she says. “You’ll take me and my family to the frontier and get us out.”

For a moment, Karofsky weighs his options. Realizing he doesn’t have many other choices, he nods and throws her a look of assurance—a promise he will swear to keep.

“Lie down,” Lady Z orders.

Karofsky obeys with some reluctance, turning over on his side until he’s facing away from the young woman. Lady Z kneels behind him and gently uncovers his backside, peeling off his military jacket cemented black with dirt and blood. He winces at the agony of Lady Z’s touch. Even the slightest pressure is almost unbearable.

“There’s—so much blood,” she says to him, shrinking at the gruesome sight.

Suddenly, Lady Z’s revulsion turns to visible horror as her fingers poke around the lump threaded to the skin on Karofsky’s backside. She cringes, recoiling in disgust.

Sensing her discomfort, Karofsky strains to look at her, but she pushes him away.

“They said I killed a child,” he whimpers.

Lady Z forces her hands underneath Karofsky’s vest and pulls out something from beneath his blood-spattered white shirt. Out of the corner of his eye, Karofsky can barely make out what she’s exposed. He winces, unsettled, as soon as he recognizes what it is—a small red handkerchief.

“Is that—?” he starts to ask her, pretending to play dumb.

The corners of Lady Z’s eyes web with tears. Her voice trembles when she speaks.

“It’s an infant,” she says. “A small child. It’s—dead.”

Without hesitation, Lady Z stuffs the red handkerchief into her satchel. Karofsky turns, struggling to face her.

“What are you doing?” he asks. “You said you’d help me.”

Ignoring him, Lady Z crawls on hands and knees toward the small table arranged in the corner of the room where a collection of surgical instruments have been set.

“Or would you prefer I bring you to our medics?” he asks. “My officers would praise me with a find like you.”

Before Karofsky can utter another word of cruelty, Lady Z wings toward him and then stabs his left thigh with a large hypodermic needle. Karofsky shudders, surprised, and cries out in agony as Lady Z empties the fluid into his leg.

“You can’t help me,” she says, sobbing quietly.

Karofsky thrashes on the ground like a fish hauled onto the deck of a trawler, desperately struggling to right himself only to no avail. While he tussles there, Lady Z begins to prepare another hypodermic for usage.

“What did you do to me?” he screams at her. “I can’t fucking move.”

“Your nervous system is well,” she explains. “I wondered whether you’d prefer the anesthesia. But I wanted you awake so that you could keep me company.”

Karofsky’s eyes widen. “For what?”

In one swift motion that decides the matter, Lady Z drives the hypodermic into Karofsky’s chest. He shrieks, convulsing in agony as she drains half of the fluid into him. Then, when finished, she wrenches the needle from him and stabs it into her own thigh. Lady Z winces for a moment. However, it isn’t long before her discomfort softens to visible pleasure.

“We’ll be reborn—together,” she whispers to him, weeping.

Karofsky groans like a helpless, captured animal. Lady Z heaves herself on top of his limp body. She regards him the same meticulous way that a carnivorous insect might observe what will eventually become their prey. Then she reaches behind her head and drags out a large clump of her hair, grinning horribly while she moans.

Karofsky watches without comment as Lady Z brings her hand up to her mouth, pushes her fingers between her lips, and then begins pulling on something. She winces, her eyes watering as she labors to wrench the damned thing from her mouth.

After what feels like hours, Karofksy watches Lady Z rip her rotted tongue from the root of her mouth and brandish the blood-greased muscle before him as if it were some kind of obscene ornament of things yet to come—things that were inevitable and could now never be undone.

Blood as thick and as dark as oil pouring from her mouth, Lady Z tosses her wilted tongue aside and crawls up to Karofsky’s face. She inspects the entirety of his paralyzed body—from below his waist to his shoulders. She takes the pacifier dangling from her necklace around her throat, shoves it in her mouth, and begins nursing. Lady Z examines Karofsky’s eyes with her fingers and then moves further down his face until she arrives at his lips. She pries him open there, forces her fingers inside his mouth, and then begins pulling on his withered tongue until it splits apart in her tightening fist.

The sickening thuds of distant gunfire and explosions dim to a mere whisper, the world droning on and on outside the sanctity of their little tomb. But closer—drawing ever nearer from the darkest corner of the small cellar—is a horrible wet, slithering sound.

Eric LaRocca (he/they) is the Bram Stoker Award®-nominated and Splatterpunk Award-winning author of several works of horror and dark fiction, including the viral sensation, Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke. A lover of luxury fashion and an admirer of European musical theatre, Eric can often be found roaming the streets of his home city, Boston, MA, for inspiration.

Review: The Dead Take The A Train by Cassandra Khaw and Richard Kadrey

John Mauro

Cassandra Khaw teams up with Sandman Slim author Richard Kadrey for The Dead Take the A Train, their new urban dark fantasy set in a riotous, magic-infused New York City. Khaw and Kadrey are a match made in hell, spawning horrific gods and demons who run amok in the rotten core of the Big Apple.

Freelance magic operative, Julie Crews, is a coked-up whirlwind of chaos, whose self-destructive tendencies are matched only by the unbridled mayhem she brings to her commissions. As the novel opens, Julie executes an anarchic job at a bachelorette party featuring a possessed bride-to-be who gives new meaning to the word bridezilla.

Despite her proven track record taking on the dirtiest, most dangerous jobs in a demon-infested New York, thirtysomething Julie can’t seem to get ahead in her career or social standing. It doesn’t help that her ex-lover, Tyler, takes credit for their work and is climbing the corporate ladder at a prestigious, deep-pocketed Wall Street-type firm.

Julie decides to summon a guardian angel to help pull her life together and advance her career. But the angel is actually a shapeshifting elder god bent on bringing global annihilation in a New York minute.

The Dead Take the A Train serves as a scathing satire of American capitalism, as Khaw and Kadrey skewer Wall Street culture and its obsession with climbing the corporate ladder. In many ways, The Dead Take the A Train feels like a nightmarish dark fantasy take on The Wolf of Wall Street. But at its core, the novel is also a feminist tale of a strong woman who accepts no nonsense as she blasts herself at the corporate glass ceiling.

The Dead Take the A Train also reminds me a bit of Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman and Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami, both dark fantasies that feature horrific creatures hidden beneath the surfaces of London and Tokyo, respectively. Compared to these novels, Khaw and Kadrey have moved the action to New York and significantly amped up both the horror and hysterics.

The Dead Take the A Train is a fast-paced madhouse of mayhem combining the best of Kadrey’s thrillers with Khaw’s gruesome Lovecraftian horror. It’s also blisteringly funny, striking the perfect balance between humor and horror. The writing flows smoothly throughout the novel, with Khaw and Kadrey finding a common voice that perfectly suits the irreverent nature of the tale. My only complaint is that the novel feels too long, and the plot could have been tightened up in several places.

Overall, The Dead Take the A Train is a blast and highly recommended for dark fantasy and horror fans looking for a good time. The story will continue with Khaw and Kadrey’s next volume of their Carrion City duology.

4/5

An Interview With Richard Kadrey

Beth Tabler and John Mauro

Richard Kadrey is the New York Times bestselling author of twenty novels, including the acclaimed Sandman Slim series which debuted in 2009. Kadrey has also published over fifty short stories and several nonfiction books, including From Myst to Riven: The Creations and Inspirations. Kadrey also writes comics, movies, and articles on technology and culture for several newspapers and magazines. Outside of his prolific writing career, Kadrey is a photographer and cofounder of the avant-garde musical project, A Demon in Fun City.

Kadrey’s latest novel, The Dead Take the A Train, is coauthored with Bram Stoker award-winning horror author, Cassandra Khaw. This issue of Grimdark Magazine features interviews with both Kadrey and Khaw, as well as a review of their new novel. In our interview with Kadrey, we discuss the writing process and inspiration for The Dead Take the A Train, the Sandman Slim series, and Kadrey’s latest musical endeavors.

[GdM] Please tell us about your new collaboration with Cassandra Khaw, The Dead Take the A Train. What is it about?

[RK] It’s about Julie Crews, a supernatural operative who’s down on her luck and will do anything from demon hunting to exorcisms for quick cash. When her luck goes completely off the rails, she decides she finally needs to ask for help. So, she gets and old grimoire to summon a guardian angel—but things don’t turn out the way she wanted and soon, New York is awash in blood.

[GdM] What was the collaboration process like working with Cassandra? Did you split the chapters? Or was it completely collaborative from start to finish?

[RK] It was great. We alternated chapters at first, then went over each other’s work to smooth out the differences in our prose styles and, of course, to add new ideas. It was a messy, crazy way to work, but I think it came together in the end. Of course, we had a lot of help from our editors, Kelly Lonesome and Kristin Temple.

[GdM] The Dead Takes the A Train illuminates many corporate culture issues. How did this idea develop?

[RK] A lot of my previous books have been set in LA, which is a place of dreams and remaking yourself into a superstar. New York, to me, is the opposite of that. It’s a get to work, fuck you, get out of my way I have things to do town. And while LA is about dreams, New York is about money and power. That kind of energy draws dark magic to itself.

[GdM] Julie Crews is a total antihero. Her self-destruction and destruction of all those around her is a thing to behold. How did Julie come about?

[RK] Julie came from conversations early in the process. Julie always had a good heart, but can’t catch a break, so she self-medicates. I suppose, to be honest, that’s a bit of me from many years ago. But the Julie in the book has a better sense of humor about it. Plus, she’s stronger and smarter than I was, so she does something about her problems. And when things get really bad, she goes to her friends instead of just hiding out getting fucked up the way I did back then.

[GdM] What about the setting of The Dead Take the A Train drew you? It is as if the world rests on this base layer of filth and terror that normals don't see.

[RK] I think people see the filth, the greed, and the terror. They just don’t know what to do about it, so they ignore it and hope it doesn’t get too up close and personal with them. Julie and her friends see it too but are more equipped to either fight the malevolent forces or find ways around them.

[GdM] If you put Sandman Slim in a room with Julie Crews, who would win the fight?

[RK] They would go to a bar, get drunk, and play old punk records on the jukebox until the bartender threw them out.

[GdM] What was it like writing the final Sandman book? Was it bittersweet?

[RK] Bittersweet is a good word for it. I wanted to give Stark a good ending, both for himself and the fans who’d stuck with him for so long. But, of course, I’m cheating too. Sandman Slim isn’t completely dead since I’m writing some stories set in that universe. Candy has a new solo story in my collection, The Secrets of Insects.

[GdM] Can you tell us about Seven Blood Stained Orchids? How did this solo project come about?

[RK] I was a musician for years, but was crippled by stage fright. One day, I couldn’t take it anymore, sold off all my gear, and ran away from music. Of course, I regretted it for a long time. Then, when we were in Covid lockdown a couple of years ago, I bought a little MIDI keyboard and Logic Pro software and started doing sound experiments. BC Smith—my partner in the band A Demon In Fun City—reached out to me on Facebook and gave me some good advice on how to get started back into music. I spent a year composing the pieces that became the Seven Blood-Stained Orchids album, The Devil in Amber. And while I was working on it, BC and I started collaborating on music, which was the birth of A Demon In Fun City. Our first album will be out in late June.

[GdM] Your new album is called The Devil in Amber. What is the title based on?

[RK] The title comes from an image in Guillermo del Toro’s movie, The Devil’s Backbone. In it, there’s a fetus stored in a jar of golden fluid. That image haunted me and I imagined the Devil caught in a similar jar, imprisoned forever in amber liquid.

[GdM] You wrote a novel in 1997, From Myst to Riven: The Creations and Inspirations. Myst is one of the first successful non-linear stories and implies nearly all of the story; very little is spelled out. The only reason to do that and why Myst could do that is because the worldbuilding is rock solid. What do you believe makes Myst so quintessentially "Myst-like?" Can a book author capture the same feeling as a game author? Or are they too different a media?

[RK] I think that books and games are very different animals. Each has its place in the world and they can influence each other, but I enjoy the fact that they’re different. I don’t want books to become more game-like, although if someone showed me an interesting way to it I’d be interested in trying.

[GdM] You have written and performed in many different formats. Do you approach all story creations the same? If not, how do you approach each different type of creative project?

[RK] All my stories begin the same way: I scrawl on yellow legal pads or start typing in a blank Word doc. At first, it’s like automatic writing. Just putting down words and images with no connection or purpose. If I do that long enough, I often find that patterns emerge and a story slowly begins to present itself. Of course, a lot of those experiments generate nothing but garbage, but I still like the messy process.

[GdM] Finally, if you were to pick favorites, which books would you choose for your favorite prose, worldbuilding, action, overall favorite, and why?

[RK] Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian is probably my favorite book. It’s like an Elmore Leonard western but told by an angry Old Testament God.

I’m interested in the idea of gods and belief system and for that reason, I enjoyed Neil Gaiman’s American Gods.

I love Robert Stone’s Dog Soldiers both for its prose and its examination of an exhausted American culture during the Vietnam War.

Recently, I enjoyed CJ Leede’s wild debut novel, Maeve Fly. It’s a warped and bloody love letter to a fucked up LA as written by a serial killer who’s embraced all the city’s absurdities and excess.

An Interview With Cassandra Khaw

Beth Tabler and John Mauro

Cassandra Khaw is an acclaimed game writer and author of over ten books. Their breakout horror novella, Nothing But Blackened Teeth, was a finalist for the Bram Stoker Award, Shirley Jackson Award, and World Fantasy Award.

Khaw is publishing two new books in 2023: the dark fantasy novella, The Salt Grows Heavy and the urban horror, The Dead Take the A Train. The latter is co-authored with veteran horror writer Richard Kadrey.

Khaw recently took time out of their busy schedule to chat with us about their new books and writing process.

[GdM] Thank you for joining us for this interview! Please tell us the origin story of your collaboration with Richard Kadrey. How did you two meet and develop the idea for co-authoring a novel?

[CK] Through Twitter. I got intensely upset about someone stealing my Kindle, and Richard shared my apocalyptic fury about the whole situation, which was how we got to talking. I’d been a fan of his for years; I basically immediately wanted to work with him on something and he was sweet enough to not bonk me on the head and laugh.

[GdM] What was the collaboration process like working with Richard Kadrey? Was it easy to find a groove writing together and to converge on a unified narrative voice?

[CK] It took a few tries. We’d initially set it up so that we’d alternate chapters, but discovered quickly that Richard likes having the context of previous chapters to write his—so my erratic skipping around was messing with his rhythm. Things sped up when we realized it wasn’t a bad idea to have one person writing first and then the other almost editing them, with the first checking in regularly. As for the unified narrative voice, I think that came from rounds of edits, where we made little tweaks to each other’s work until we ended up with a truly different thing.

[GdM] After reading The Dead Take the A Train, I assume that you are… not a fan of American corporate culture. I love the unrestrained way you skewer boardroom culture and the obsession with climbing the corporate ladder. Could you tell us how you developed this satirical aspect of the novel? Did the idea come before or after choosing New York City as the setting?

[CK] Hahahaha. Most of my inspiration comes from the games industry. I love my work. I love so many of the people I’ve worked with. I can’t imagine working anywhere else. But some of the personalities you meet and some of the ways the bigger companies allow little pieces of shit to perpetuate an environment of abuse while they look away—well, woo boy. Anyway, a lot of observations about that definitely seeped into the book.

[GdM] Who were some of your influences when writing The Dead Take the A Train? It’s such a unique read, and hard to make comparisons to other novels.

[CK] Romantic comedies as a genre, haha. If you really pay attention, if you look through the curtains of hanging entrails and baby hands, The Dead Take the A Train absolutely is a rom-com. I swear. Honest.

[GdM] Julie Crews is a great protagonist in The Dead Take the A Train, bringing chaos wherever she goes. She seems to be equal parts self-destructive and destructive of everything around her. Were there any particular inspirations for her character? She seems like a lot of fun to write.

[CK] God. A lot of it is derived from memories of being young and stupid, I think. (At least on my end.) Like, if you’re in your twenties and you had a rough past but can fight like a cornered pitbull, you start testing the world to see what you can get away with. It was certainly true for me. I got into so many fights. I was so angry; I hated how the world expected me to be a meek little thing and just snarled at anything that moved. And it’s a defense too, honestly. People don’t hurt you if they know you’ve got teeth. (It also makes it difficult for people to get close to you and people to show you that not everything is suffering, but those are the lessons you learn in your thirties…)

[GdM] The Dead Take the A Train is the first volume of your planned Carrion City duology. What can you tell us about the follow-up novel?

[CK] … there is a fox and the fox got stuck and the thing the fox got stuck in was a corpse. She has no idea how she got in there, but she’d really like Julie and Sarah to find out.

[GdM] I read an interview where you talked about generational trauma and how women are viewed. "...the idea that good women are seen, not heard; good women work hard and don’t complain; good women give everything in hopes that the people who come up after them might have more...A lot of my work, I think, screams at the idea of that silence, that sense of being restrained and small, of not asking too much, of being tidy." Did you write Julie with these ideas in mind? She is certainly not a woman to be silenced or restrained.

[CK] I think I write all my femme-presenting characters that way. I don’t think it’s possible for me not to. I am surrounded by so many powerful AFAB people, people who push back against impossible odds, people who have survived incredible horrors, people who choose to be soft and who choose to be kind and who choose grace despite the world. Everyone I know is someone who won’t be extinguished by the world, and who burns with want to make it better. How can I write anything else when I’m surrounded such fire?

[GdM] We are so accustomed to Disneyfied versions of fairy tales that tone down many of the dark aspects of the original stories. But The Salt Grows Heavy goes in the opposite direction, giving a chilling variation of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid. How did you develop the idea for this book?

[CK] I think the world is a feral place. I was nomadic for about ten years of my life, and it quickly became clear to me how easily one can just vanish. What we see as a civilized world is really a facade. Some of my tendency to darken fairytales is because of that. The other inspiration for the book, hilariously, is 9gag. There was a CollegeHumor college strip from years and years ago that asked the question, ‘What if Ariel laid eggs?’ I naturally had to take that to a horrifying conclusion.

[GdM] I’m also intrigued by the plague doctor in The Salt Grows Heavy. Is the plague doctor meant to provide a comment on the COVID-19 pandemic? Or did you have something else in mind when developing this character?

[CK] Nope! Not commentary on the COVID epidemic. I did have an idea some time to go to play with the imagery because of what the plague doctor used to represent to so many medieval communities: how their coming often signals terrible things, even if they had nothing to do with the plague itself. (The plague doctor is also, in many ways, a representation of what it is like to be queer, to grow up under so much external pressure, to have your early life torn apart and built by people who don’t really care much about who you really are. They’re a complicated beast and I love them so.)

[GdM] We had a raging discussion on Twitter about whether a mermaid eating human flesh constitutes cannibalism. Would you like to give a definitive answer to this question?

[CK] It is totally cannibalism, at least to me.

[GdM] Your prose in The Salt Grows Heavy is absolutely beautiful. How many rounds of edits did it take to get this polished to perfection?

[CK] Oh, man. That’s incredibly kind. I edit as I go so I don’t know how many rounds of edits. Sometimes, I spend hours on a single sentence until it sounds right in my head. (I have synesthesia and a lot of my writing involves writing so it ‘sounds’ right. Because if it doesn’t sound right, it’s just, well, it’s a lot like trying to practice with a guitar that hasn’t been tuned. You might get all the notes right but god almighty, your ears are gonna hurt.)

[GdM] For all its darkness, the ending of The Salt Grows Heavy is actually rather sweet. Is it important for a horror novel to provide a ray of hope in a world of darkness?

[CK] I think so. At least it is for me. There are plenty of people who would say otherwise. I think I’ve seen numerous discussions on Twitter about how it isn’t really horror if there’s some kind of happiness at the end; horror needs to break your heart.

But I don’t think I can do that. Not in this time of the slow apocalypse. I need something to survive the darkness otherwise, it feels a bit pointless. (Is this how all horror should be? No. Horror is all-encompassing. Horror should have everything for everyone—same with any other genre.)

[GdM] Could you tell us about some of your work as a game designer? Did you work on both video games and tabletop games? How has your career as a game designer influenced your writing?

[CK] I am not a game designer, per se. I’m a narrative designer; we do a lot of work trying to figure out how to bridge story and gameplay, how to enhance the latter, how to build something that is faithful to the creative vision. (I’m also very often just a game writer and it’s a lot of the same thing, except with less official focus on how the game works).

I’ve worked on tabletop games and also video games, yes. I’ve been very fortunate that way. And I haven’t felt as if there was any correlation between my video game work and my fiction writing. They’re different mediums, different fields.

[GdM] You work in multiple areas of creativity: game design, novels, short stories, poetry, and editorials. Is there a commonality between all these areas in approaching a creative project? Do you start with an idea, a feeling, a setting, or a character?

[CK] I’m definitely noting a pattern to my approach. Regardless of the medium, I often block out the big ideas and vibes first and figure out a vague flow to things before I kick off any project.

[GdM] I am fascinated with people who can write poetry. You mentioned in an article how Accents by Denice Frohman moved you and made you want to write poetry. Could you talk a little about that? Why did this particular poem strike a chord with you?

[CK] Because of my own accent. These days, I sound like I moved to the States in my teens: you can hear the ghost of an Asian accent in the way I put emphasis on certain words, and how I can’t pronounce ‘th’s. That was intentional. I learned quickly that people dismiss you if you sound too Asian and I basically did everything to iron out my history from my voice. Frohman’s poem, however, made me want to be kinder to my voice; it made me see again the poetry (if you’d excuse the pun) in the musicality of it. And it left me utterly awed by how the poem captured Frohman’s love for her mother’s voice.

[GdM] You are one of four esteemed guest lecturers at this year’s Alpha Workshop for young writers in science fiction, fantasy, and horror. What are some of the key pieces of advice that you offer to young aspiring writers?

[CK] Mostly, that it is okay to want to make money off your passions. I think there are a lot of people out there who act like it’s a bad thing to want to make your writing a career and that you should be grateful to even be published. But the truth is we live in a hard world and you damn well are within your rights to demand for more.

[GdM] What are you doing next?

[CK] Richard and I have another novel to come up with. I’m also working on a big dark academia novel, an IP-related novel, and am really excited about some game stuff I probably can’t talk about for another decade.

Review: The Militia House by John Milas

John Mauro

The Militia House is the debut horror novel from John Milas, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran who was deployed to Afghanistan in 2010. Milas brings his personal experience to The Militia House, which gives the first-person account of newly promoted Corporal Loyette, whose unit is assigned to a base in Kajaki, Afghanistan, in the same year as the author’s own deployment.

Loyette and his crew are replacing British soldiers who tell the Americans eerie stories of a nearby abandoned barracks. This so-called Militia House was the site of a massacre of Soviet soldiers at the end of the Soviet Union’s occupation of Afghanistan in 1989.

The daily life of the soldiers is quite monotonous, and curiosity gets the best of Loyette and his unit as they explore the Militia House. They soon find strange unaccountable writings and become plagued by nightmares.

John Milas’s writing is well-honed, particularly for a debut novel. The author’s real-life experiences as a marine in Afghanistan enable him to give a realistic depiction of a soldier’s life on duty. Loyette’s narration flows smoothly, aside from the occasional use of military jargon and an odd obsession with Nicki Minaj that seems an awkward fit for the rest of the novel.

The first half of The Militia House is rather slow paced, reflecting the dullness of a typical soldier’s life during deployment. But the unsettling nature of The Militia House gradually builds throughout the novel, leading up to a perfectly executed climax that kept me flipping the pages till the very end.

Milas is especially adept at describing the emotional tolls of deployment in a war zone, even for soldiers who have not seen direct combat. The onset of post-traumatic stress disorder can be subtle, often manifesting in unconscious ways. Milas also explores the impact on military families, both during their loved ones’ deployment in dangerous locales so far from home and in the aftermath of their service.

Corporal Loyette has been deeply affected by the loss of his older brother, who died during his own military service and is viewed by everyone as a hero. Many of Loyette’s decisions are driven by him questioning his own self-worth considering his brother’s sacrifice.

One peculiarity of The Militia House is that the Afghan people play essentially no role in the story. It would have been interesting to consider how the interactions between the occupying soldiers and local people could have influenced the plot.

Overall, The Militia House is a highly accomplished debut horror rooted in reality. The horror elements gradually creep up on the reader, reflecting both the terror of experiencing an active war zone and the psychological tolls experienced by soldiers in the aftermath of their deployment.

4/5

The Comfort in Horror

Aaron S. Jones

Horror: an intense feeling of fear, shock, or disgust.

Horror is an odd genre. Its content, as its name suggests, is designed to instill a feeling of fear, shock, or disgust in its audience and yet there are many of us who go out of our way to delve into the genre through books, games, tv shows, and films. Why do we wish to have such an experience? What is it about the horror genre that draws us into its shadows and jumps out at us with a bang? It is a genre that has evolved throughout time to stay relevant and, when done well, there really is a strange comfort in horror.

There’s nothing new about scary stories. Search back through human history and you’ll find dark tales and spooky stories designed to teach and entertain and give us reasons for why we are afraid of the unknown. There are unique monsters and devils to almost every culture in history designed to explain strange situations and understand the fear of the people and the stories have continued to develop and keep tight their stranglehold on society as we progressed to new types of storytelling. Horror is ever changing and connects itself to a shared trauma of the times, holding a dark mirror up at society and forcing us to take a good look. The stories can often be warning tales, developed with a message for its audience about the dangers of taking certain pathways. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein forced people to look at the danger of pushing the limits of science without knowledge of what will happen next. It also explored the idea of loneliness and rejection in society and its causes. It was a book that was ahead of its time and entertained its audience even whilst scaring them. The 1800’s brought scary stories like Frankenstein, Dracula, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and The Turn of the Screw. All have been adapted for the screen to various degrees of success, each designed to unsettle the viewer. In the early days of cinema, horror was all about monsters. Nosferatu, The Werewolf, Frankenstein, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and others were memorable, successful productions. The 1930’s saw Bela Lugosi become a star playing Dracula and this was also the period where these dark films had the ‘horror’ label attached. Of course, the next decade witnessed the true horror of the Second World War, and this brought with it an interesting evolution in the genre.

The fear of atomic power and invasion and the shared trauma of what the world had witnessed led to films such as Godzilla, and The War of the Worlds. Such films provided their audiences with a chance to process their own emotions and fear. Horror films allowed groups of people to come together in a cinema and witness their fears being played out in front of them on a big screen whilst safe in the knowledge that at the end of the film, they would be safe. This is where the comfort in horror lies. Whether it is a Psycho slasher masterfully brought to screen by Hitchcock, demonic horror in The Exorcist, or a bunch of Korean schoolkids hiding from a horde of zombies in All of Us Are Dead, the audience is able to spend time being frightened out of their skin but also fully aware that they will be fine afterwards. Scientific studies have even claimed that the resilience built up from experiencing events that scare us in a safe environment help us to deal with times of difficulty. Horror gives its audience the opportunity to play out their fears, to look for the monster under their bed or the ghost in the shadows and see the event play out in safety. They can walk away from the content after getting their shocks and scares completely safe in the knowledge that they are okay. It is similar with grimdark content. The same ideas draw audiences to grimdark and horror. They allow audiences to process darkness in a safe and manageable manner. If something is overwhelming, the book can be closed. The episode or film can be paused. The game switched off. It is under the audience’s power and control. And this control is everything. The emotional regulation skills developed through experiencing content that scares us can be of great use. It has often been the unknown that has scared humans throughout history, this is why we spend so much time searching for answers to big questions. Horror offers some answers in the form of worst-case scenarios and gives the platform for us to tackle them safely. The story might scare us, but at the end of the day, it’s just a story. It is all about the experience.

Horror provides a space for people to come together and face their fears. The Last of Us tv series hit very differently to the game due to the fact they were released either side of an actual worldwide pandemic. The beats of the story were the same but the connection and understanding of the audience added that extra uncomfortable layer to the tv series. We had seen what a pandemic was like. There were still supernatural elements to the story but it felt more real than in the game. There were ideas, moments, actions that were more easily identifiable and allowed some to immerse themselves in the story and perhaps even find comfort in seeing Joel deal with some of the issues in the dystopian world. Video games can be quite interesting when looked through the lens of processing our fear and developing resilience. In The Last of Us, Resident Evil, Silent Hill, or Bioshock, the gamer takes on a more active role and is given a chance to feel in control (at times) of the path the character is taking and the comfort comes with taking on the antagonists with a controller in hand and feeling as though you are playing an active part in facing those fears. There is a catharsis in all horror and grimdark content. They allow audiences to tackle frightening concepts, supernatural or not, in a safe space where they can process their fears at their own pace whilst also promoting discourse with others.

It may seem strange to devour media created to scare but the human experience calls out for us to feel something. This is what good horror does. It makes us jump. It frightens us. It shocks us. It makes us think. It makes us feel. And that’s what we need from any story. Thankfully, horror remains as popular as ever. It, A Quiet Place, The Last of Us, Get Out and so many more stories are proving that we still want to be scared and we’re all the better for it. It may not be for everyone well-written horror serves a bigger purpose than just entertainment. It remains relevant for each generation and can be mapped alongside some of the major turning points in human history. The world wouldn’t be the same without horror. And I think you’d agree: a world without horror would be an absolute nightmare. So turn the lights off, grab some popcorn, and try not to scream. Facing your fears is actually quite good for you, and you’ll have loads of fun doing it!

Born in the area of Birmingham that inspired Tolkien's Middle-Earth, Aaron S. Jones caught the fantasy bug early.

He is the author of Flames of Rebellion, the epic first part of The Broken Gods Trilogy. When he isn't reading or writing, he teaches as Head of English at a primary school in Kent, introducing the next generation of readers to the world of fantasy.

You can find him rambling about his favourite books, films, and games on Twitter @hereticasjones or via his website aaronsjones.com.

Review: The Vampires of El Norte by Isabel Cañas

John Mauro

Vampires of El Norte is the second horror novel by Isabel Cañas following her highly regarded debut, The Hacienda. As with her first novel, Vampires of El Norte combines elements of horror, romance, and historical fiction to create a chilling tale in an historical Mexican setting.

Vampires of El Norte alternates perspectives between Nena and Néstor, an adolescent couple in northeastern Mexico in 1837. Tensions are rising between the local Mexican ranchers and Anglo settlers who are crossing the border from Texas.

Meanwhile, Nena is fascinated by her grandmother’s folktales, which are haunted by menacing nocturnal creatures that suck the blood of their victims and leave them to die.

A nighttime tryst gone terribly awry causes Nena and Néstor to separate for nine long years. Néstor drowns his sorrows in a life of debauchery, while Nena trains as a healer in the art of folk remedies.

Nena and Néstor unexpectedly reunite as the Anglos bring full-scale war to Mexico. But can Nena forgive Néstor for abandoning her and succumbing to a life of vice? A possibly rekindled romance is set against the shadows of the Mexican-American War and the constant fear of an unspeakable horror.

Isabel Cañas manages a careful balance between the romantic and horror aspects of the novel. In my view, the first and last portions of the book strike just the right balance. However, the middle part of the novel takes a lighter romantic tone that left me craving something darker.

Oral traditions play an important role throughout Vampires of El Norte, lending a folk horror aspect to the novel. I especially enjoyed the author’s unique representation of vampires, which is genuinely terrifying at first and later adopts a more melancholic feel. Isabel Cañas delivers one of the most creative and compelling depictions of vampires that I have read in a long time.

Another highlight of Vampires of El Norte is its mid-nineteenth century setting during the Mexican-American war, which Isabel Cañas leverages to draw parallels between fictional creatures of horror and the real-life terrors of nationalistic aggression and war. Vampires of El Norte is an excellent example of how fantastic elements can help enhance our understanding of historical tragedies and their impact on both the individuals involved and society as a whole.

Vampires of El Norte is compulsively readable, blending the usually disparate genres of horror, romance, and historical fiction all in one compelling Weird Western story. I look forward to reading more from Isabel Cañas in the future.

4/5

An Interview with Carissa Orlando

Beth Tabler

Who better to write psychological horror than someone who has studied and seen all the nuances of the human psyche? Carissa Orlando is the debut author of The September House, out from Berkeley this September, in which a woman is faced with an unusual haunted house and layers upon layers of secrets.

She spends her days as a clinical psychologist ensuring children and teens have access to the mental health care they need and her nights writing. A long-time devotee of the macabre, it was only a question of time until she merged her understanding of human nature with her love for horror, drawing on the darkest sides of the psyche. Grimdark Magazine had the pleasure to catch up with her about The September House, her background and writing process.

[GdM] What inspired you to become a writer?

[CA] I’ve always been somewhat imaginative, and my brain is constantly making up and running with little stories. This was true even when I was a kid—creating vast worlds for my action figures and writing little comic strips about my favorite toys. It was only logical that I start to write down the strange, rambling creations I conjure up. Otherwise, they’re just taking up space in my brain, and there’s already too much detritus up there as it is.

[GdM] Are there particular elements that define what a horror story is to you? If so, what are they?

[CA] This is a question to which I can see my answer changing over the years! For right now, however, I think my answer is fairly simple: a horror story has to bring the frights. It doesn’t matter what the themes are, who the characters are, or what the plot is, a true horror story is one that will send a shiver down a reader’s spine and have them thinking twice before stepping foot in a dark room later that night. Truly, I don’t need much out of my horror stories—just scare me!

[GdM] What scares you? Are there any ideas that you would love to explore?

[CA] I’m an anxious person, so all sorts of objectively boring things terrify me. Unexpectedly running into someone I know in public—a literal nightmare. Being texted we need to talk with no context—actual panic attack. Cockroaches—kill with fire. One day, I would love to write a novel that translates the anxious brain into something understandable and horrifying for the rest of the population as well. There’s something about that that seems fun and incredibly satisfying.

[GdM] Can you tell us about your new novel, The September House?

[CA] The September House tells the story of Margaret, a woman who currently lives in the house of her dreams. There’s just one, tiny flaw—the house just so happens to be haunted. Very haunted. Still, Margaret is determined to live peacefully with her formerly-living roommates—pranksters, as she calls them—and has developed a set of rules for surviving in her house of horrors. She has no intentions of fighting back, even when the paranormal events worsen each September, and definitely not against the creature who lives in the basement. Then Margaret’s husband, Hal, vanishes. Their estranged daughter, Katherine, insists on coming to visit to look for Hal, unaware that the house is haunted. Margaret’s priority is to keep Katherine safe, a difficult task with September starting. As Katherine’s search for her father turns up distressing findings, Margaret is at a loss on how to protect her daughter not only from the pranksters in the now but from the past she so desperately wanted to keep in the then.

[GdM] I understand you are a big fan of horror stories. What attracted you to the haunted house trope?

[CA] I’m not even sure I can fully articulate what it is about them, but I just love haunted house stories. I love them. I love all the tropes—the screaming and the bleeding and the formerly-living residents and the monsters in the basement and the immense metaphoric potential. I love a good metaphoric potential. Also, there is something so fantastically lovely about ghosties and goblins coming to get us in the place where we live and eat and sleep, the place where our family is, the place where we’re supposed to be the safest of all. The fright in that is so universal, and it makes my twisted little heart deliriously happy.

[GdM] You have a doctorate in psychology; how has your education helped your creation of characters?

[CA] I’ve been studying and practicing psychology for over a decade now, and it is oftentimes the lens through which I view the world. My background certainly shaped the novel in many ways, although not all of them are spoiler-free! One of the many, many lessons I’ve taken from my career is that every person’s actions, no matter how perplexing they are at face value, are completely understandable once you learn a bit about the person and their context. I feel that I took that lesson into the characters in this novel—Margaret definitely engages in a lot of behaviors that readers might not choose for themselves (electing to stay in a house full of ghosts, for example). However, this all makes perfect sense for Margaret and who she is as a person. Margaret makes a great deal of sense, even when she makes no sense at all. As do we all.

[GdM] The September House is your debut. Has the process of writing from start to a finished novel been surprising?

[CA] The most surprising thing thus far is just how many steps there are to the publication process. I sold The September House towards the end of 2021, and my friends and family were all a little confused to hear that it wouldn’t be out on bookshelves for nearly two years. It all makes sense now: that time is filled with countless little steps along the way—revisions and copyedits and proofreading and more proofreading and formatting and re-formatting and decisions upon decisions upon decisions! All sorts of people put their brains and eyeballs onto the thing to be sure that, once it is out in the world, the book is as close to perfect as it could be. Between myself, my agents at Folio, and all the wonderful folks at Berkley, taking this story from manuscript to publication has truly been the very definition of a team effort!

[GdM] How do you balance writing with other aspects of your life, such as work or family? I read in the acknowledgments that you have quite a support system of family and friends.

[CA] Not needing a lot of sleep is pretty helpful. Also, I recommend keeping hobbies to a minimum.

In all honesty, I am grateful to have supportive people in my life, particularly my spouse, who doesn’t mind me disappearing behind my laptop for hours on end, hearing the questionable little factoids I’ve learned in my research for a horror novel, or being asked to read the fourth iteration of an ending to the same story yet again.

[GdM] Speaking of characters, can you tell us about Margaret? Was she difficult to write? Did you have any particular inspiration that helped create her?

[CA] Sometimes when writing, I am blessed with having characters show up knowing exactly who they are and what they want to do, and Margaret was one of those characters. She arrived fully-formed, and all I really had to do was write her down. There is a lot that I love about Margaret. She is near-impossible to rattle, is pragmatic and no-nonsense, and is delightfully unimpressed by her own tremendous ability to survive. She is completely willing to do whatever it is she must, sometimes to a fault. And of course, Margaret has her flaws. She has a superficiality to her, has learned when it’s best to keep her head in the sand, and sometimes her understanding of reality isn’t quite in line with what is actually real. Do her actions always make sense? To her, yes. To others, not so much. God bless her, though—she tries her best.

[GdM] One of the things that were so remarkable about how you wrote The September House is how blasé you wrote Margaret's attitude. Can you tell us a little about Margaret's reaction to the house?

[CA] When we meet Margaret, Margaret’s attitude towards the horrors of the house is the exact opposite of that of any other character who has found themselves in a haunted house story—complete indifference. Margaret refuses to be driven out of her home by some paranormal pranksters and has, over time, developed a series of functional but not entirely foolproof rules for surviving in the house relatively unscathed. After all, this is all old hat for Margaret—she’s been through all sorts of things at this point in her life, and she knows how to adapt, to survive. Heck, compared to all that, living in this house might just be a cakewalk.

[GdM] The ghosts that haunt the house on Hawthorne Street are memorable, to say the least; how did you choose how they would manifest and why?

[CA] When I initially came up with the concept for the book, I wanted Margaret’s house to be the most haunted of haunted houses. Every way a house can be haunted, I wanted it to happen in Margaret’s house. Thus, I threw pretty much every haunted house gimmick I could think of at Margaret, just to watch her roll with it. Bleeding walls—check. Screaming at night—check. Invasions of flies and birds—check. Ghostlike, horrifying former residents who may or may not mean harm—check. Terrifying basement that definitely means harm—double check. No haunted stone was left unturned!

[GdM] Did the story end up where you thought it would when you first started writing it?

[CA] It did not, and literally so! When I first developed my plan for the story, it had a completely different but not particularly satisfying (to avoid spoilers) ending. Midway through, I had an idea for an even better ending, although even that didn’t quite hit the right notes once all was said and done. After feedback and support from a bunch of people, I was able to get to the ending readers will see in the book, which I personally enjoy the heck out of. I remember being physically excited when I wrote the first draft of what is essentially the current ending—heart pounding, giggling, excited—and that was when I knew that this novel was going to end in a place that was both satisfying and memorable!

[GdM] What do you hope readers take away from The September House?

[CA] If you see a gorgeous, well-maintained Victorian house on the market for a surprisingly low price, maybe check for bodies.

Lullaby for a Lost World

Aliette de bodard

They bury you at the bottom of the gardens—what’s left of you, pathetic and small and twisted so out of shape it hardly seems human anymore. The river, dark and oily, licks at the ruin of your flesh—at your broken bones—and sings you to sleep in a soft, gentle language like a mother’s lullabies, whispering of rest and forgiveness, of a place where it is forever light, forever safe.

You do not rest. You cannot forgive. You are not safe—you never were.

After your friends have gone, scattering their meager offerings of flowers, after the other archivists have left, it’s just your mother and your master, standing over your grave. Your mother looks years and years older, hollowed out by grief, but your master stands unchanged—tall and dark, with light shining beneath the planes of his face, his skin so thin it might be porcelain.

“Was... was there pain?” your mother asks. She clutches your favorite doll—so well-worn it’s going to pieces in her hands. She doesn’t want to let go because, when she’s knelt in the blood-spattered mud of the gardens, she will have to get up, she will have to go back, to move on, as though everything she does from now on does not stand in the shadow of your death.

Your master’s smile is a hollow thing, too; white and quick, perfunctory. “No,” he says. “We gave her poppy. She felt nothing.”

It’s a lie, of course. There was poppy; there were opiates, but nothing could alleviate the pain of being torn apart—of the house gnawing at your innards; of claws teasing open your chest, splitting ribs in their hurry to lick at your heart’s blood—of struggling to breathe through liquid-filled lungs, lifting broken arms and hands to defend yourself against something you couldn’t reach, couldn’t touch.

“I see.” Your mother looks at the earth again; hovers uncertainly on the edge of your burial place. At length she lays down the doll, her hands lingering on it, a prayer on her lips—and you ache to rise up, to comfort her as she’d always comforted you—to find the words that would keep the darkness at bay.

You are dead, and there are no words left; and no lies that will hold.

And then it’s just you and your master. You thought he would leave, too, but instead he kneels, slow and stately, as if bowing to a queen—and remains for a while, staring at the overturned earth. “I’m sorry, Charlotte,” he says at last. His voice is melodious, grave, as impeccably courteous as always—the same one he had when he told you what needed to be done—that it was all for the good of the house. “Better the weak and the sick than all of us. I know it doesn’t excuse anything.”

It doesn’t. It never will. Beneath the earth, you struggle to push at what holds you down—to gather shattered flesh and glistening bones, to rise up like the dead at the resurrection, raging and weeping and demanding justice, but nothing happens. Just a faint bulge on the grave, a slight yielding of the mud. Voiceless, bodiless, you have no power to move anything.

“You keep us safe,” your master says. He looks... tired, for a moment, wan and drained of color in the sunlight, his eyes shot with blood. But then he rises, and it’s as if a curtain had been drawn across his face, casting everything in a sharper, merciless light; and once more he is the dapper, effortlessly elegant master of the house, the man who keeps it all together by sheer strength of will. He stares at the blackened water of the river, at the city beyond the boundaries of the house—the smoke of skirmishes and riots, the distant sound of fighting in the streets. “Your blood, your pain is the power we rely on. Remember this, if nothing else.”

You do; but it has no hold on you, not anymore.

He walks away, his swallow-tailed jacket shining like obsidian in the greenness of the gardens.

Time passes—months flipped forward like the pages of the books you used to love so much. Your master sits behind the gleaming windowpanes of the house, smiling and sipping fine wines, ageless and fattened on the blood of his sacrifices. Your mother dies, and your friends move on—your name becomes like you; buried, broken, and forgotten; your place long since taken in the library and, in the depths of the house, the circle where you died grows faint and bloodless, every scrap of pain long since absorbed to feed the magic that keeps the world at bay. Outside, the city is burning, tearing itself apart over polluted water, over grit-filled rice and rotten fish. Inside—green, verdant gardens; food on the plates; and music and love and laughter, all the things you used to take for granted, when you lived.

Time passes—there is a girl who comes to sit by the river’s edge. Who steals books out of the library and knots red ribbons into the raven curls of her hair, unaware of what lies beneath her. Who runs, laughing, with her friends—except that you hear the slight catch of breath—feel the slight stumble as, just for a moment, her heart misses a beat and her feet become unsteady on the ground.

“Isaure!”

“I’m fine,” the girl says, pulling herself together. She looks down, then, at the slight bulge of the earth. “That’s funny. What is—”

“Ssh,” the other, older woman says, shaking her head. “Don’t speak of it. It’s bad luck.”

Beyond the gardens, the house waits—walls of golden stone, paneled doors with intricate carvings that seem to come alive at night and, in the cellar underneath, the circle, almost faded to nothing now, the growing hunger of the house’s magic, the price that must be paid, again and again, by those who cannot be allowed to live.

I’m sorry, Charlotte.

Liar.

When Isaure comes back, she is paler; and unsteady on her feet; and red has bloomed on her cheeks like blood. “I know you’re here,” she says, standing over your grave.

You feel something shift within you—some indefinable rearrangement of your self—a femur, poking upwards, jellied muscles suddenly finding consistency, hair strands spreading farther and farther away from your remains, like tendrils extended toward the house. But you’re still here, still held fast by the earth, by the river’s endless song, the lullaby that offers no solace or appeasement.

“The others won’t talk about it, but I need to know.” Isaure sits, for a while—no red ribbons in her hair, which tumbles thick and unruly in her lap. “I—I don’t even know what happens.”

You could tell her, if you still had a voice—of the day they will come for her, two footmen and a butler and the master behind them, solemn and unsmiling, and as grave as if this were her first communion—of how they will bring her to a part of the house she’s never been to, a place of embroidered carpets and silk curtains and wide, airy rooms—of how they will comb her hair, doing it up with fine silver pins in the shape of butterflies, and give her clothes—a red dress, or a red suit, whichever she prefers—delicate, luxurious confections embroidered with birds and flowers—brand-new, for your own clothes were torn and stained when you died, and were as unrecognizable as your body was, a mess of stiffened lace and slashed cotton that they buried with you, not finding the heart to separate it from your mangled remains.

And then the slow descent into the cellar—that tightness rising in her chest, as if the air she’s breathing was being taken away from her—and the circle, and the altar, and—and a last draught of poppy, an illusory comfort that will not hold when the darkness at the heart of the house rises and she strains against the shackles, trying to stifle the scream that’s tearing its way out of her...

Isaure—don’t— you whisper. The earth shifts above you, and your bones push upward, as sharp as razor blades, the tip of one femur barely breaking the surface—and Isaure bends, as if she could hear you.

“Please,” she says.

Don’t, you say, but she’s already gone—her breath coming in short, sharp gasps, her heartbeat irregular, feeling as though it might be snuffed out at any time. You wonder how much time she has—how much time you had, when they came for you and your rotten, consumptive lungs, how much life the house and your master stole from you as it will steal from this child. You’re dead, and the dead cannot intervene, but if only you could—

When Isaure comes next, your master is with her. He looks as he always did—as if time passed him by, leaving him only slightly paler, only slightly thinner—and he moves with the grace and elegance you remember from your own lifetime—you remember him, pausing down the stairs halfway to the cellar and waiting for you as you struggled with the unfamiliar train of the dress, a reassuring presence in this oppressive place—a comfort you could cling to, even if it was a lie.

“There’s not much time left,” your master says. “Isaure—”

Isaure shakes her head. She’s scarecrow-thin, as if a breath of wind would tumble her, her face pale except for her blood-red cheeks; and her legs wobble, sometimes; she keeps herself upright only through strength of will. “It’s too short.”

Your master doesn’t say anything for a while. “It’s always too short. I can’t heal you—I can’t prolong your life—”

“Liar,” Isaure says. “You’ve lived forever.”

Your master grimaces. “It’s not life,” he says at last. “Just... a continuation—a stretching of time.”

“I would take that,” Isaure says, slowly, fiercely.

“Don’t be so sure.” His smile is bleak; the mask lifts again, and for a moment he’s nothing more than a skull beneath stretched, paper-thin skin, with eyes shriveling in their orbits, and a heart that keeps beating only because the house stands. “Eternity is a long time.”

“More than I’ve got.”

“Yes,” your master says. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re not.” Isaure watches him, for a while, stares at the river again. Today the sounds of fighting are distant: Outside, most people have died, and the sky is dark with poisoned storms and acid rain. There is little to salvage in the city—perhaps in the entire world. “Are you?”

His eyes are dry; his face expressionless, with not an ounce of compassion. “I do what I have to. So that I survive. So that we all survive. And no.” He shakes his head, slowly, gently. “The house will only take you one way, and it’s not the way it took me.”

Isaure shivers. “I see.” And, turning slightly away from him, kneeling on the grass, one hand inches from the edge of your exposed bone—“Will... will there be pain?”

He pauses then; and time seems to hang suspended, for a moment; it flows backward until he’s standing at your grave again, and your mother asks that same question, slowly and fearfully—and he could change the course of things, he could speak truth, instead of lying as he’s always lied, but he merely shakes his head. “No. We’ll give you poppy and opiates. It will be like going to sleep.”

Liar. You want to scream the words, to let the winds carry them all the way around the house, so that they know the price they pay for their safety, the price you paid for their sakes, only to lie unremembered and broken beneath the gardens, the only ones who still come a betrayer and a doomed girl—but you have no voice, and the earth chokes you, and you cannot. . .

Above you, Isaure rises, smiles—cautiously, reassured by words, by the presence she’s known all her life.

“It’s time,” your master whispers, and she’s turning toward him to follow him meekly, back into the house, to the wreck of her body and another grave at the bottom of the gardens, and soon they’ll both be gone, beyond your reach until it’s too late for anything but futile grieving—

No!

You push—with broken bones, with decayed hands and arms and legs—and your body twists and shifts as the earth presses against it, and your muscles shiver and coalesce again, and butterfly hairpins melt as if within a furnace—and you turn and turn and change—and rise, bloody-mouthed, four-legged, from the earth.

Your horn is the yellow, gleaming bone of your femur, sharpened to a killing point; your mane is your blood-matted, earth-clogged hair, dragging worms and flies’ eggs from the shadowed rest of your grave; and your skin is scraps of red, blood-drenched cotton, knitted and patched over the rawness of muscles bunched to leap.

Isaure watches you, her mouth open—the flames of your eyes reflected in her own—and your master is watching, too, but—unlike her—he knows.

“Charlotte...”

Isaure jerks, as if something had pulled on strings at her back. “No,” she whispers, as you paw at the ground with silver hooves.

You run her through, before she can say another word—her blood splatters, warm and red—the same hue as your skin, drenching the grass in vivid, obscene colors—a crunching of bones beneath you, and then you’ve leapt over her remains, and there is only you and your master.

He has not moved. He stands, watching you—no expression on his face, his blue eyes dry and fearless. “You know I do not lie,” he says. He stands as if rooted within the earth, his swallow-tailed jacket billowing in the wind, his face alight with that same strange, fey radiance. “There is always a price to be paid for safety. Don’t you know this, Charlotte?”

You know this. You have always known this. Blood and pain and sacrifice and the power of the house—the only true things in a dying world, and what does it matter if not everyone pays them? Only the sick and the weak, or the innocent, or the powerless?

There is no rest. There is no forgiveness. And never, ever, any safety.

“It’s too high a price,” you say—every word coming out distorted, through a mouth that wasn’t meant to shape human sounds—and you drive your horn, slowly and deliberately, into his chest—feeling ribs crack and break, and the feel of a body bending backwards, crumpling under you—an odd, twisting sensation as the house flickers—reeling, wounded and in agony, retreating to the safety of the underground altar.

Too high a price.

You look at the house in the twilight, in the rising wind and shadows—at the golden limestone walls still untainted by smoke; at the pristine, unbroken windows facing the desolation of the city; at the vast, brittle abundance of greenery in the gardens—the tapestry of lies that made your old, careless life possible.

It’s gone now, smashed to splinters beneath you, and that price will never be paid again.

Then you move—running toward the house, the grass shriveling under each strike of your hooves, strands of darkness following in your wake like nightfall—toward the fading circle in the cellar and the dozens, hundreds of people who sent girls to die in agony for the good of the house—you run, to finish what you have started here.

Weird Horror

Deborah Wolf

Do you remember the first time you felt it?

Perhaps you were chopping wood one Alaskan night, enjoying the play of muscles and the ache in your hands as thick logs of birch gave way beneath the heavy wedge of a splitting maul, falling like soldiers to be stacked neatly against the killing cold, when something made you look up into the night sky. And there it was, pinning you with the malevolent glare of a billion cold suns, so vast and alien and unknowable that the air turned to ice in your throat.

Did you drop your maul and flee into the safety of your home, did you feed wood into the woodstove with shaking hands and huddle close to the fire, shuddering as though you’d never be warm again?

Or perhaps you were drifting in the tourmaline sea, buoyant and blissfully peaceful in salt-rich waters, smiling around the snorkel’s mouthpiece as small fish darted in and out of your drifting hair, when the shadow came. One moment you’re an apex predator in a new element, feeding bread to the tropical fish and enjoying the womb-warm water sliding along your skin, and the next you’re a scrap of flotsam flailing and gasping between white-maned waves as something peers up at you from the abyss, all tentacles and teeth and flat-eyed hunger?

Did you climb into the boat, feigning seasickness, and refuse to go back into the water?

Did you lock your door?

Turn on all the lights?

Did you turn the television on full blast, call your mom ‘just to say hi’, and shy away from the edge of hysteria in your own voice?

You know you have. It is the reason we build cities—communal campfires made big and bright and knowable—a bulwark against the omnipresent Other. The reason we look away from the plane’s small windows when lightning tears through the sky outside. The reason we fear to skip stones across a still, black pond, or stick a hand into a shoulder-deep hole in the wall, or linger too long in a heart-rotted swamp.

The all-knowing, unknowable weird.

Mary Shelly peered too long into the void, and came back with an undead monster, a wretch with maggots in its heart and madness swimming to the surface of his mad, yellowed eyes.

H. P. Lovecraft, pickled in the brine of his own bigotry and world-loathing, delved too deeply into the mines of nightmare and dredged up the tail end such horror that he turned his face from the sun, ashamed and afraid and small, and begged to know no more.

China Miéville.

Neil Gaiman.

Daphne du Maurier.

Stephen King.

Phillip K. Dick.

Tanith Lee.

Edgar Allen Poe.

These are a few of the storytellers who have tried, with black ink smashed upon bone-white paper like tiny magical wards, to warn us of the ancient horrors which we sense, but which lie beyond our ability to understand.

Like ants pinned beneath a glass lens we freeze, casting wildly about for some clue as to the nature of this threat.

But we cannot comprehend the source of our terror because it is too big, an extinct shark risen from the depths to swallow us whole, a moss-encrusted horror risen once more to suck the marrow from our souls.

We cannot know because we must not know. If we stare too deeply into the expanse, the depths, the void, we will attract the attention of the Unseelie Court, a monster, a god.

And when those terrible eyes meet ours, when the questions we should never have asked are answered, we will see our true selves reflected endlessly, destroying the beautiful lies we have woven about our world, our worth, our place in the universe.

Since our ancestors first gazed up at the night sky, or into a fire’s heart, or into the still waters of a moonlit pool, we have asked: “Who am I? What is out there?”

But we ask in a whisper, and then throw more wood onto the fire, and pretend we don’t feel that searching gaze.

Because in the answer to those questions lies madness.

And it is hungry.

Last Pale Light in the West

Josh Rountree

I mean to tell you now of the time I rode out for Mexico with a pair of killers and a preacher of ill repute so we might hunt down the devil and put a bullet in his head. You may find it hard to believe a boy of twelve could pull the trigger but that’s the way it happened. The killers were dead by the time we caught up with him and the preacher was sorely maimed, so that left nobody but me to finish it. We all do what we must in this life.

I was born in the south of Texas during the war. My Daddy left to fight the Yankees and never come back. I reckon he was killed or else found him another family. Momma found a new husband and he brought his kids to live with us for a time, but they weren’t around for long. So, it was just my mother left to take care of me best she could, and she did a fair job of it right up until the day the devil come to town and killed her.

It was a cold October, unlike most, and our scrap of a town trembled beneath what they called in those days a Comanche Moon. Fat and white and ominous. Light enough for nighttime raids and so most people with sense kept to their homes and prayed the Comanche would choose another town, another farm. That night the Comanche stayed away, but there was more bloody murder than even they were capable of. I hid beneath an old moth-chewed quilt that had belonged to my grandmother, and I stayed there through all the screaming, even as the house burned around me. It was my mother took me out of there in her arms, and maybe it would have been better for her if she’d stayed there and burned.

I missed all but the last, so this part I got from the mouth of Preacher Jacob. Unreliable was a description often applied to that sallow-faced old fool. Drunk was another. But in this instance, I’ll allow his story had the color of truth. There were enough gasping corpses in the streets to corroborate his version of the events.

Preacher Jacob was no real preacher. For longer than I’d been alive he passed his days seated cross-legged on the porch of the tack and sundry store, usually leaned up against the spittoon. Tugging a bottle of some sort. Oft times he’d catch a bit of brown juice in the eye from careless or cruel tobacco chewers, but he was generally too drunk to take offense. It was in this place and this state that he greeted the coming of the devil. To hear him tell it, that old ruiner of souls rode into town and commenced to burning the place down without a word. Conjured up fire from thin air. According to the preacher, he pulled it all the way up from Hell, and I suppose that’s the only real explanation for it.

Preacher eyed a stranger riding up in the darkness, then all of a sudden, a pair of horses lashed up to the porch railing burst into flames. Preacher said you never heard nothing like them horses screaming, and I can imagine. A couple fellows come over to investigate, one of them with a pail of water. Them boys caught fire too. The stranger was laughing now. Preacher couldn’t get no good look at him, except for the eyes. They possessed a red light no darkness could quell. So said he. And they flicked left and right, hunting for targets. Taking aim and setting fire. Before long, half the town was ablaze, my house with it. That’s when momma lifted me from the bed and fled into the street, and we found ourselves directly in the path of the Prince of Lies himself.

“Hello, Amanda,” he said. I didn’t understand how he knew Momma’s name until Preacher told me later how the devil knows all our names on account of he lives in all our hearts.

Momma started screaming and running but that devil knocked her down and burned her eyes out and he smiled the whole time. Then he drove his hand into her chest and Preacher told me later that was the devil reaching in and plucking out her soul.

I don’t remember much after that, but it was Preacher grabbed me from the street while the devil was busy with my momma. We hid out in the scrub on the edge of town among the few trees that hadn’t caught fire, and we waited there until the devil killed his fill and rode on out of town to the south.

I stared at the ass end of his horse as he rode away and made up my mind then and there to kill that bastard dead.

* * *

Besides me and Preacher, only two men survived Satan’s visit—the killers I already mentioned. They were brothers, James and Beauregard, both Williamsons and both freshly liberated from the city jail and the prospect of the hangman’s noose. There had been a third brother, young Thaddeus, that one guilty as the rest, but when the jail began to burn down around them all and the north wall collapsed, the two eldest siblings had managed to scramble free, choking smoke, while Thaddeus found his leg caught beneath a fallen portion of the building and commenced to burn to death. For this, the two living brothers felt they owed the devil a comeuppance, and they lit south out of town while his tracks were still fresh.

I do not value the company of outlaws, but in those hard times I saw little option but to throw my lot in with them. I intended to kill the devil myself, and feared they might find him before I did.

“You mean to follow them killers?” asked Preacher Jacob. Already they were disappearing against the horizon.

I found a black pony running loose, caught his mane and calmed him. I scrounged in the remains of the livery stables and found a useable saddle, all the while listening to that preacher yapping in my ear. I told him hell yes I meant to go with them and he started hunting up a horse too.

“I didn’t say you could come along,” I said.

“I’ve lost my flock,” he said. “Nothing for me here.”

I wasn’t too sure any of the people in town had considered themselves part of Preacher Jacob’s flock, but it was true enough they were lost.

“I mean to kill the devil,” I said.

“I would surely like to see that,” he said.

“Well, come along then. But find your own horse and be quick about it. He’s already got a step on us.”

A few hours later, we rode up on the killers. The sad animals we’d scavenged were lathered and near to collapse, but we’d managed to catch up. The killers turned on us but didn’t bother to even pull their pistols. I don’t blame them. The preacher and I were a sorry lot and they had little enough to fear from the likes of us.

“Get on away now,” said James. He was the bigger of the two brothers but had one sunken eye. “Go find your momma.”

“She’s dead and the devil killed her.”

“Well, that’s going around,” said Beauregard, the younger. “Why you got that old drunk with you?”

“I lost my whole flock,” said Preacher Jacob.

“You never had no flock. Maybe it’s just your bottle you lost.”

Preacher pulled a half full bottle of whisky from his jacket pocket and waved it overhead. The killers laughed.

“Take this child home,” said Beauregard.

“I ain’t got a home,” I said. “Devil burned it down.”

“We’ll kill that devil for you,” said Beauregard. “He burned young Thaddeus. Our brother.”

“I’m going with you. I mean to kill him first.”

They laughed again.

“See that squirrel perched on that oak limb?” I asked.

“I ain’t blind,” said Beauregard.

I unlimbered my Winchester rifle from the saddle holster, turned and put a hole in the animal from fifty paces. I retrieved the squirrel, figuring it ought not go to waste.

“Squirrel’s tough chewing in my experience,” said Jacob. “Fair tasty though.”

“I don’t kill nothing without good reason,” I said, and it was the truth.

“You steal that gun off a dead man?” asked James.

“Yes, but there were plenty laying around. Nobody will miss one. And I doubt the Lord will fault me for it.”

“I don’t think he has no say around here anyway,” said Beauregard. The killers turned their horses and resumed riding south.

Me and the preacher fell in behind them, and though they didn’t ask us to ride alongside, they didn’t try to chase us away no more neither.

* * *

We camped just north of the river, and I ingratiated myself with the killers by hunting up a couple more squirrels and a fat rattlesnake. Neither one of them had much experience killing and cooking varmints, so long as they stayed hungry, I figured they’d tolerate me.

While we were eating, there come an old man on a mule, splashing up out of the shallow part of the river. He was a Mexican but spoke fair English. He had cotton hair, and his hand shook when he shared a dented flask with the Williamson brothers. When the flask come around Preacher Jacob’s way, I noticed he took a mite longer tug than the rest of them.

“Why do you ride south?” asked the old man who’d introduced himself as Eduardo.

“We’re hunting the devil,” I said, earning hard looks from the Williamson boys.

“Yes, and that’s our business,” said Beauregard.

“I don’t want any part of that business,” said Eduardo. “You’re foolish to chase him.”

“What do you know about it, old man?” asked Beauregard.

“More than you, I guess. Why do you think I’m leaving Mexico? I looked that creature in the eye, and I don’t like what I saw.”

“If you looked him in the eye, you’d be dead,” said Beauregard.

“I might be,” said Eduardo. “Except for he needed me to find you.”

“Say again,” said James.

“He told me to find a boy, a drunk and a couple of killers just north of the Rio Grande. And here I have. He said tell you that he’ll see you. Very soon, too. And to tell the boy he’ll have his soul.”

“He’ll not have this child’s soul,” said Jacob. “The devil can’t just take your soul. You have to give it to him.”

“That may be so,” said Eduardo. “But the beast seemed confident he would have it. I believe the devil has laid a snare and this boy is the rabbit. He has plans for this one.”

“I mean to kill him before he does any more soul taking,” said Beauregard.

“How do you intend to kill him?” asked Eduardo.

“Same way I killed all the others,” grinned Beauregard. “With this Colt.” He loosed the pistol from its holster and took aim at the horizon, just over the old man’s shoulder.

“Yes, that might work,” said Eduardo. “He’s in a man’s body after all. But you know you must wait for the in-between times.”

“I’ve heard that before,” said Preacher Jacob. “The devil is a man.”

“Close your mouth, drunk,” said Beauregard.

“What do you mean, he’s a man?” I asked.

“When the devil comes among us, he comes wearing the skin of a man,” said the Preacher. “Like a suit of clothes, I reckon. Maybe a righteous man, maybe a sinner. Don’t matter none. Devil just finds him a man and takes him over I guess.”

“I said shut the hell up.” Beauregard clipped the preacher on the chin with the Colt and the preacher took his words to heart.

“He’s right,” said Eduardo. “You can’t hope to kill him for good, but you can free the poor soul he’s living in.”

“I came to kill, not to save no one,” said Beauregard, grinning. “Either way, put a bullet in his head and it ought to set him back a mite.” He holstered his Colt and gave me a wink.

“Even so, you must wait for the in-between times, as I’ve said. Shoot him any other time and the body won’t die.”

The preacher nodded his head vigorously but kept his words to himself.

“What are the in-between times?” asked James. He peered at Eduardo through the licking flames of the campfire, sizing the man up with his one good eye. The fire painted his pale skin with menace. James was the quieter of the two brothers until something particular seized his attention. I had the feeling the world was a safer place when James had no keen interest in it.

“They are the times when the world is turning from one thing into another,” said Eduardo. “The change of the seasons. The moving in of a storm or its passing, when the blue sky breaks against the gray backbone of the clouds. The exact moment of dusk or dawn, meaning the first hint of light pushing over the eastern horizon, or the last pale light in the west.”

“The in-between times.” I said these words as if they were magical, and I suppose they were.

“How come you to know so much about this?” asked Beauregard.

“I told you I looked into the devil’s eyes. This is what I saw there. I knew none of this before today. He wanted this knowledge passed on to you, and now it has been. I believe he intends for you to kill him.”

“He’ll get his wish,” said James, then his pistol was in his hand, and he put a bullet into Eduardo’s throat. The old man slumped backwards from the campfire, kicking one leg and trying to hold his blood in with both hands. Instead, it escaped in a flood and ran through the dirt and scrub weeds down the steady slope of the riverbank. There it found the slow muddy creep of the river itself and by that time, Eduardo was stone dead.

Tears ran down the preacher’s face. He obviously believed we’d be the next ones dead. But I knew better. The devil had plans for me, or so Eduardo had said. And I did not believe he’d allow me to come to so ordinary a death before giving me the opportunity to serve his purpose. I lifted Eduardo’s tarnished flask from the dirt and took the last swig of the burning liquid inside. Beauregard chuckled at that, and James holstered his pistol, returned to his dreadful silence.

The devil had plans for me. I believed it to be true.

Despite my youth, I felt I’d earned his attention.

* * *

We come upon the hanging Indians a day or so south of the river. Apache by the looks of them, though I’ll allow they could have been Comanche. It made no difference—they were just as dead. They hung not from pecan tree branches or dead man’s scaffolding, but from the air itself. No rope held them there, just the hand of death I suppose, clutching them by the hair like a mother cat, spinning them slowly so the bloody pits of their eye sockets stared at you for a time, looked away in disgust, then turned back to face you once again.

There were four dead in all, though the pond of blood beneath them could have given life to an army. We could ride no closer than a hundred feet without stepping in the muck, and in any case, the horses wouldn’t approach. They chewed the air and scattered backwards, no more willing than we were to give closer examination to the corpses. They’d been given hard treatment. Flayed and torn, several with amputations. One of them was missing both ears. If they’d had horses, the beasts had fled.

“Lord, it’s the worst thing I ever seen,” said Beauregard, pulling up reins at the edge of the blood pool. The stuff bubbled and boiled, as if heated beneath by hellfire.

“Lord has nothing to do with this.” Preacher Jacob held a whiskey-stained bible against his chest like a shield. I’d never seen him actually call on the power of the bible before, but it appeared he’d not lost all his religion.

“I ain’t simple,” said Beauregard. “I know what done this. What do you reckon is holding them up?”

“Evil,” said Jacob. “And nothing but.”

“Evil makes a damn good rope then.” Beauregard took a couple of shots at the closest Indian, but the bullets didn’t dislodge the body. All of them continued to slowly turn, like barber poles.

“Don’t shoot them,” I said. “Looks like they had it hard enough.”

“They’re just heathens,” said Beauregard. “And dead besides. They don’t mind none.” He took another shot to illustrate his point, then grew bored of it and holstered his Colt.

“Let’s ride,” said James. “Devil ain’t here no more.”

“This is a message,” said Jacob. “He’s trying to tell us something.”

Beauregard snorted. “Yeah, he’s trying to tell us to stay the hell away. I ain’t listening.”

“Let’s ride!” said James. “I don’t mean to stay here another second.” His horse pulled away from the blood and the rest of them followed eagerly. We began a wide circle around the pool and the spinning corpses followed our progress with their empty eye sockets. On the south bank of the pool, blood lapped at the weeds like waves pushing against the shore, and it wasn’t until we had our backs turned to the scene, leaving it with some haste, that the Indians began to chant.

“Man killer. Baby killer. Man killer. Baby killer.”

“Jesus, Lord,” said Jacob. He held his bible in the general direction of the Indians, but they did not relent.

“Man killer. Baby killer. Man Killer. Baby killer.”

“To Hell with that devil. I never killed no babies. I ain’t wicked as all that.” Beauregard’s face curled up in genuine disgust at the slight.

“Ride,” said James, and he did, ignoring the dead and urging his horse into a slow trot. His brother followed, and Jacob reluctantly joined them.

I sat atop my pony, pondering the Indians for a moment longer. The site of them would have horrified me before the devil came to town, despite all I’d done. Now the whole scene was just another atrocity to be endured as best as possible. But the fact that I’d grown numb to the devil’s violence was not my chief concern. The fact that he wanted something from me was far more interesting.

The devil knew things, just as I did.

“Man killer. Baby Killer. Man killer. Baby killer.”

I turned my pony and followed the others, and we did not outride the voices of dead Indians for a very long time.

* * *

The next afternoon we discovered a town of sorts. More like a collection of adobe houses bound in by a low, rock wall that had tumbled apart in a few places. The place had a name, Los Lupes, and someone had pained this name on a piece of rotting wood that leaned against the wall where a narrow gap had been left to allow entrance.

Preacher Jacob urged caution. It was his desire we ride around the place, for surely the devil had visited. But the brothers thought they might find some whiskey to steal, and possibly a whore, so they insisted on exploring. It was left to the preacher and me to follow or strike out alone. It was my belief that a pair of hard killers might prove valuable when the final showdown came with Old Scratch. And so, I relented and followed them into Los Lupes.

The town was well looked after, with the dirt paths between buildings kept clean of weeds and manure. But whoever cared for Los Lupes did not appear to welcome us. Nothing stirred but a few mangy goats chewing at fence posts, and a half dozen cows penned inside a mesquite corral. The goats bleated and our horses clopped up the street but otherwise the place refused to move. It was the kind of day where the world burned and cracked beneath the intensity of the sun, and the blinding white light collected in the corners and crannies, in panes of glass, until you felt the heat like a blinding headache. It was the kind of day a person might seek tree shade, might seek some kind of breeze, not keep to their houses, which held in the heat like Dutch ovens.

“You’ll be hard pressed to find a whore in this town,” said Jacob. “Or whiskey neither. Like as not nobody even lives here no more.”

“Somebody lives here,” said Beauregard. “Look at them cows. You let us worry about whores and you worry about your praying.”

“I think he’s right,” I said. “This is a quiet place. The people are either gone or in their houses.”

“Or else drug down to hell by Satan himself,” said Jacob.

“Or that,” I allowed.

“One of them’s bound to have whiskey,” said Beauregard. “Or a daughter.” He slipped down from his horse in front of one of the homes and knocked on the wood plank door. “Hey now, come on out. We’re thirsty travelers.” He waited just a fistful of quiet seconds before impatience claimed him. Beauregard put his boot to the door handle and shoved. Wood splintered and the door screamed around on its hinges to reveal a pit of darkness inside the adobe, lit only by the red light of a single candle. There sat a man at a table, having a meal. He looked up, surprised to see us, but not evidently distressed at the state of his door.

“Tengo hambre,” he said, grinning like a loon.

“Why didn’t you answer your door?” asked Beauregard.

“Tengo hambre.”

“Hell, don’t you speak English?” Beauregard stepped into darkness then promptly scattered back onto the porch like a snake had taken a strike at him.

“He’s a god damn cannibal!” Beauregard pulled his pistol.

“Say again,” said James.

I crept up close to get a better look at things. Sure enough, the man was having his meal, but the flickering candle revealed what appeared to be a boy, about my age, spread flat on the table with his stomach open, and the man looked to be picking at his innards with a bent fork. Beauregard pulled me off the porch by the shirt collar, but the heat and the stench of that room would have driven me away just as surely.

“He’s a cannibal,” I said. “He’s eating a boy.”

“Seems I’m a prophet,” said Jacob. “We should have avoided this town.”

“You’ll be a dead prophet if you don’t keep quiet.” Beauregard made for his horse and the rest of us saw the sense in that.

We’d all mounted up when the man emerged from his home, thin as a silver dollar, wet with blood and sweat, still hanging on to his fork.

“Tengo hambre,” he said.

“Kill that man,” said James.

He was surely speaking to his brother, but I was faster. One shot from my Winchester and the man was dead on his own porch.

Jacob kissed his bible and closed his eyes. James gave me a thoughtful stare and I met it. I understood why they wouldn’t expect such action from me. But it was not the first person I’d killed. No, certainly not the first.

Doors creaked open like coffin lids all over town. Alerted by my shot, the citizens of Los Lupes left their homes and filled the street. Every last man and woman was just as graveyard thin and bedraggled as the man I’d killed, and if they hadn’t been walking I’d have thought they were dead already. Many were bloodied, and all wore a desperate look that begged us to kill them.

James was the first to oblige, putting a shot dead in the chest of a waddling woman in a sack dress. She fell and another woman joined her. Beauregard put her down. They commenced to come at us in earnest then, maybe forty people in all, a few carrying knives but most just figuring to take us down barehanded. I took aim at the closest man and killed him. Then another, and so on. Violence moves at the speed of a stampeding horse, and it’s easy to get caught up and carried away by the momentum. The preacher took sanctuary amid our circle of killers, face buried in his horse’s mane. All of this lasted only a few seconds, and then the survivors were upon us.

They pulled Beauregard from his horse first. He dropped his pistol as he fell and when he hit the ground the people of Los Lupes went at him tooth and knife. James followed him to the dirt and they both disappeared beneath the crush of hands and mouths. Other townspeople closed in and tried to dislodge the preacher, but he clung tightly to that mane, so they settled for biting into his leg, pulling off his boot and gnawing at his ankle and toes. It came clear to me. The devil had fixed them with a powerful, unnatural hunger. I understood such compulsions, but I was unwilling to become anyone’s meal.

Two of them grabbed at my legs. I knocked them back with my rifle butt, but they came again. Preacher was howling, but apart from a few halfhearted swipes with his bible, he seemed unwilling to defend his life. Holding the hungry at bay with my rifle, I yanked my pony’s reins and begin to spin like a windmill. The pony didn’t take much urging, already as afraid as the rest of us. His flank slammed into the preacher’s horse and sent the animal into a sudden gallop. The preacher held on tight, heedless of direction.

People clawed at my pony, and I nearly lost my seat, then the pony broke free, rode one man into the ground and bought me the distance I needed to fire my rifle. I killed seven men, two women. One angry, bloody faced child. My intent was to lend aid to the Williamson brothers, but by this time all those mouths full of skin and leather told the truth of it. There would be no whiskey nor any whores for them killers.

A few of the people fanned out, looking to circle me up again, so I spun the pony and chased off after that preacher. It was our good fortune that his horse was carrying him south, and that there was a point of egress through the southern end of the town’s low wall. We broke free into the desert, charging for the devil, and whether or not he wound up with the souls of them two killers is something I still do not know.

* * *

The desert was devil red, like it was colored with the beast’s blood, but we pressed on south, heedless of any obstacle, be it burning sun or the stark truth that we rode to our likely deaths. My pony had slowed to a near crawl, yet even at that pace he outdistanced the preacher’s exhausted mount. We’d fled Los Lupes in a blind terror, and our horses had paid for it. They frothed and stumbled, and I doubted they would take us another mile. What we would do then, I did not know. The preacher looked worse off than the horses. Badly maimed and drunk besides, he slumped over to one side, and I reckoned him to fall with each surge of the landscape. A good piece of his right foot was missing, chewed away by them cannibals, and they’d also taken several large bites from his calf. The wounds had festered and reddened, and flies had taken to them. Even if we survived the devil, the preacher was unlike to survive the desert.

It was in that state of despair that we finally caught the devil. Or that he allowed himself to be caught, I suppose.

He must have deemed our trials sufficient, for just as my pony slumped dead between my legs and I toppled to the ground, he appeared against the late afternoon sun, stalking toward us from the west. I was at first disappointed. Though I’d seen the beast the day he’d burned my town, I’d been fearful then and had imagined him into something more than he was. The man who approached us was certainly the devil—the fire in his eyes confirmed that. But otherwise, he was unremarkable. A man chasing old age, sun red and skinny and bent over at the waist. The soles were off his boots as if he’d walked all the way from California and his chambray shirt had been torn and mended more than once.

It was only when he spoke that I was reminded of his power. It was the voice mothers used to lie to their children. The voice of broken promises and bloody murder. It was the whispering voice of the snake that sold us all into sin. We’ve all heard that voice in our lives at some time or another. And we’ve all used it too.

That voice said, “So here we are, young man.”

“Yes, sir, we are. And I would have been here faster if you hadn’t devoted so much time to confounding our efforts.”

“You wouldn’t have expected contentment and simple pleasures to trail behind me, would you?”

“I reckon not.”

“So now we’re to the business.”

“Yes.”

“You mean to kill me.”

“Yes, and I will.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

“Let me do it.” The preacher rode up beside us and was searching for his absent gun. He was hardly sober enough to sit a horse, and the devil unseated him with no more than a hard look. The preacher lurched to the side like he’d been slapped, then tumbled into a mess of cactus.

“That wasn’t necessary,” I said.

“This ain’t his business,” said the devil. “This is our business.”

I reached into my pocket, found the few cartridges I had left, and fed one into my Winchester. The devil made no move to stop me, even when I pointed the gun straight at his face.

“How come you want me to kill you?” I asked. “And no tricks. Say it plain.”

“Because if you kill me, the devil’s going to jump into you and I can go ahead and die.”

“Ain’t you the devil?”

“I am and I ain’t.”

“I asked you to say it plain.”

“There’s nothing plain about hosting the devil. I’m a man. You can see that. But the devil lives in me, rides inside me like a carriage. Oft times he’s sleeping, like he is now, but then he’ll wake up to rage and destroy and sew murder in the world. It’s tiring work I reckon.”

“So, you sought me out to free you from him?”

“No, it was the devil who sought you. Make no mistake, there’s no hiding anything from him. Not if you’re his carriage and not if you’re anyone else in the world neither. He knows everything you think and everything you done, and he chose you special. I’m just here to be killed. And I’ll be thankful when you do it.”

“Why did he choose me?” I asked.

“Just kill him!” howled the preacher. “He’s gonna turn you round with lies. That’s all he can speak. He knows we caught him and he’s trying to wiggle out.”

I ignored Jacob. “I asked a question.”

“Yes, you did,” said the devil, or the man who carried him at least. “But I think you know the answer to that question yourself. Takes a special kind to serve the devil in this sort of intimate fashion. You weren’t born a killer, but you learned quick. Do you even know it was the devil taught you?”

“Devil had nothing to do with that,” I said. “They needed killing.”

“Sure, they did,” said the man, though the way the light began to burn harder in his eyes, I wondered if the devil wasn’t waking up. “Devil made sure of that. See, here’s the thing. You was born with a darker soul than most, but you also got a kind heart and might could have grown out of it. Way it is, the devil can’t take your soul if you don’t let him. So, the devil, he finds a person like that, he sometimes gives them a push. Takes a boy’s father away to war and never sends him back. Sends a mean-fisted, hollering man and his dirty children to take his place. Drives the boy so crazy with longing and sadness and abuse that eventually that dark side of the soul rears up and just does what it wants to do.”

“You saying the devil made me kill them?

“No, boy. The devil didn’t make you do nothing. The devil just sets the pieces on the chessboard. It’s up to you to play the game. And you’re a damn good player.”

“There ain’t much to killing a baby,” I said. “Just pinch off his nose and hold his jaw shut. Ain’t nothing they can do about it. Easy enough to kill a man too, when he ain’t looking for you to do it.”

“Easy, yes,” said the man. “But hard on the soul.”

“Not so hard when they needed killing. That man beat on my Momma. And them kids... well, I just didn’t like them much.”

The preacher scooted away from me on his ass, best as he could in his stupor. He was clinging to his bible again and that drew a smile from me and the devil both.

“It’s you now, ain’t it?” I said.

“Yes, it is,” said the devil, and I knew him to be wide-awake and ready to receive me.

“I don’t appreciate you killing my Momma,” I said. “If you wanted me, you could have just taken me.”

“There’s little enough fun in that,” he said. “And besides, a man must suffer for his reward.”

“I ain’t no man. Not yet.”

“I think you are. Look how you’ve grown. You set out to kill me and now you want to take me into your heart. Though I suppose your stepdaddy and his kids would testify that I’ve been there all along. You’re a cunning creature, boy. A little beast. You are everything I hoped you’d become. And now you’ve earned your reward.”

“You mean to take me over like you did that man?” I asked. “Use me to walk around on earth and terrorize folks?”

“I thought this was explained to you,” he said. “I can’t take you over. But you’re going to invite me in. You’ve been working up to that since I pulled your Daddy off to die on that battlefield. You have a taste for killing in you now. It’s been growing, hasn’t it?”

“I sure plan to kill you.”

“You can’t actually kill me. You can just kill this man before you and take his place. And you’re going to do it, aren’t you?”

“I believe I am.”

“You’ll accept that fate?” asked the devil. “Willingly?”

They way he said it, I imagined he half expected me to reverse course. But he had to have known what a hate he’d stirred up inside me. And he knew I didn’t have it in me to set that hate aside. He’d known that much since they day I was born.

“Way you tell it I already have.”

“Was it killing your Momma that drove you over the edge? Or maybe those killers you’d grown fond of?”

“Can I shoot you now?”

“Not quite yet. Wait for the sun.”

And I seen it falling just behind him, so I kept my gun aimed at him, never wavering, until the shadows lunged from the horizon and gray twilight descended. And when the sun was but a bloody red sliver along the surface of the desert, the devil heaved a sigh, nodded his assent, and I put a bullet right between his eyes. It took me but one shot to fell the beast, and his body, his carriage, went up in flames as if I’d thrown him in a campfire. The body burned with unusual speed—within seconds there remained nothing but ash and pair of small lumps. I reached into the ash, unafraid of the heat, and removed what I thought at first were two large coals. Upon closer inspection, I found them to be a pair of cloven hooves. I held them in each hand, enjoying the warmth, and that warmth spread through the rest of me as the devil moved in and set up shop.

It was then I remembered Preacher Jacob.

My faithful companion had managed to crawl back to his horse, but unable to stand, was trying to pull himself up against the horse’s leg. That was a good way to get kicked and I told him as much, but he was chanting some sort of prayer and refused to listen. Refused to even look my way. I stalked toward him, half a mind to help, half a mind to let him get kicked to death by the horse. I reached him, held out my hand. Held out the devil’s hand. And when the preacher finally turned to look at me, his eyes grew wide at the sight, and I felt myself begin to slumber lightly as the devil sat up from bed, stretched, pulled on his boots, and bashed the old preacher’s head in with one of the cloven hooves we still held tightly in our hands.

Josh Rountree has published more than 70 stories in a wide variety of magazines and anthologies, including Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Realms of Fantasy, The Deadlands, Bourbon Penn, PseudoPod, PodCastle, Daily Science Fiction, and A Punk Rock Future. A handful of them have received honorable mention in The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror and The Year’s Best Science Fiction.

His latest short fiction collection is Fantastic Americana: Stories from Fairwood Press. His novel The Legend of Charlie Fish will be published by Tachyon Publications in 2023.

No Secrets Here

Gemma Amor

The King likes to hunt, it is widely known. The whispers say he travels with a small company of loyal men and boys of the court, has a hundred thoroughbred hounds, and rides a piebald charger with a brilliant white mane called Njal. He does not hawk, for he says he cannot trust birds. They are the servants of the devil, he decrees, and not to be relied upon.

The King carries a hunting horn made of polished bone, and wears red on hunt days, trimmed with ermine. His swollen fingers sport rubies and clusters of gold signet bands that no longer fit but removing them would indicate a lack of appreciation for the god-granted, illustrious lineage he has been born to. Thus, his bloated, shining paws can barely carry a bow, let alone use it, but when you are king, this does not signify. Lesser men, he knows, are bred for the purpose of carrying things on his behalf. The King’s disfigurement is a fine opportunity to remind himself, and his court, of the proper order of man: King above all else. Carry my bow. Groom my horse. Peel my fruit. Wipe my arse.

Serve me or die.

The King’s preferred hunting ground is a large stretch of forest on the outskirts of the township of Holburn. The woodland is thick with fir, oak, hazel, ash, beech, bracken, and brambles, and funghi of all shapes, sizes, and colour. Game flourishes in the undergrowth, as do other beasts of chase. It is forbidden for anyone who is not the King to hunt in Holburn forest, or to cut wood there, collect fallen logs, forage for berries, herbs, mushrooms, or anything else that grows. This tract of trees is the private domain of the King—only the King—and is set aside as his rightful territory for the hunting of deer, of which there used to be plenty.

Today, however, the King’s quarry is not deer.

Nor stag, wolf, boar, or fowl.

Today, the King hunts the firstborn daughter of a man who has displeased him.

The trees know this. Their boughs shudder as they wait for what will come: roots drenched with the freshly spilled blood of another virgin course. Trunks dotted with odd, ear-shaped toadstools creak and groan. The toadstools react to the sunlight, twitching, like human ears straining to hear something secret, something forbidden. An expectant wind picks up and rustles through the leaves, making a noise like that of a dozen small, dry voices raised in gentle protest against the day’s sport.

The King, who cares for nothing but satiety, ignores them.

* * *

Ida walks a path between two long stretches of briar hedgerow that rise on either side of her like the walls of a long tunnel. The thorny brush blockades were planted long ago by a farmer to keep livestock in place, but the cows have long since died, frozen to death in the terrible winter that smothered everything in ice three years since. There was no spring that year, Ida remembered. Just cold, and snow, then torrents of rain for days and then weeks on end. Crops rotted in the waterlogged ground, starved of sun and warmth. Whole villages were washed away by angry floods or buried by landslides. Just when it seemed like the whole world would drown, the rain stopped, and didn’t come back for the rest of the year. Swollen riverbeds dried up. Mud baked so hard it couldn't be tilled. People fell down in the heat of the day whilst simply going about their business. Small children and old folk succumbed to heat-fever.

A sequence of cruel and unusual events, during which, many died.

Just bad luck, some said. The spin of the millwheel. The turn of the leaf.

Others knew better.

Cunning Joan said a powerful curse had been brought on them as punishment for the actions of an evil king, but nobody listened to Cunning Joan anymore. People were too afraid of both the King and the old woman to take heed of any advice or caution. Cunning Joan could kill a man, they said, with the twitch of a finger, just for looking at her the wrong way. She steered clear of other folk, by and large, which only served to further fuel the fear surrounding her decaying cottage on the edge of Holburn forest. Rumour, which ran wild, said her house was filled with the bones of small children and the skulls of unfortunate men. Rumour also said Cunning Joan fornicated with animals and drank nothing but pig’s blood. Rumour said a lot of things, but what it didn’t say is that people can be cowardly, much preferring fear over reason.

Ida is not afraid of Cunning Joan. Ida is fascinated by the old woman. Cunning Joan is wise, and resilient. Ida knows she has much to learn from her.

That is why she is out walking, searching for a field of death, a deep-bottomed wicker basket threaded over one arm. In the basket, are a pair of iron clippers, used for trimming sheep’s wool from their hides, now ready for a different task. Ida sharpened them first thing this morning with a whetstone. The swifter the cut, the less time she spends breaking her back during the harvest.

I need four and twenty, Cunning Joan instructed. Four and twenty fresh ears. Make sure they are whole and not marked.

Cut them at the root, as close to the head as you can.

What she needs them for, Ida does not know. Cunning Joan will tell her when it suits her. Or not. Ida has learned not to question Cunning Joan more than necessary.

She finds it best to simply obey.

* * *

The King remarks that it is a fine day for venery, all things told. His company of boys and men and hounds agree with him. A fine day indeed. Warm spring sunlight filters down through newly uncurled oak leaves, and a dense carpet of moss underfoot steams, letting off a heavy mist of melted dew that coils and writhes in scattered beams of light. Holburn forest lies quiet, still, as if holding its breath. Waiting. Listening, always listening. The King’s hounds strain on their leather leashes, hindquarters shivering in anticipation, tails in constant happy motion. Njal prances beneath the King’s weight, feeling the burden of a heavy saddle made from fine-tooled leather upholstered with crimson velvet rich in gold needlework and edged with silver filigree. The King’s party, ten men in all, check their weapons and swig from wine bladders, waiting for the signal: a blast from the horn hanging from the King’s saddle.

They will not have much longer to wait. The King has decided to give his quarry—a disgraced Lord’s girl of ten and three who has fair hair and eyes of a different colour- one blue, one brown, another mark of the devil, he is sure—an extra head start, but that allowance is fast running out. He left her in the dark, loosely tied to an oak tree about half a mile to the north, with enough slack in the silk ropes around her wrists and ankles to be able to wriggle free. The girl, well-nourished, with strong teeth, slight build, and long legs, looked to be fleet of foot. The King hopes this means she will give good chase, and extra sport, for he grows bored easily. To make things especially interesting, the King has sealed the quarry’s ears with hot wax so she cannot hear the hunting party’s approach, or the baying of the hounds, and he has blindfolded her for extra merit. She will have to judge the terrain by touch and instinct alone. The King half expects her to run full-pelt into a tree and knock herself unconscious before the hounds catch up with her.

With any luck, he thinks, surveying the forest at large, she has broken free by now, and is on the run. The thought makes his loins burn, and he shifts in his saddle. Soon the forest will echo with screams, and the ground will soak with the blood of good sport, hard-won.

High above the trees, a harsh, cackling noise briefly draws the King’s attention. He glances up, frowns. Black crows flock in thick clouds far overhead, moving as one ghoulish mass to feast upon fresh carrion. A battle has been fought, and lost, on a field just beyond the forest bounds.

The King snorts and puts all thought of the failed war from his mind. It is not important, at this moment, who has fought and died for him.

The only thing that is important is the quarry, and the expression that she will wear as the King’s hounds rip her limb from limb at the close of the chase.

* * *

Above Ida’s head, a narrow strip of deep blue sky is momentarily blighted by a huge flock of carrion crows headed in the same direction as she: to a valley where dead men lie rotting in the sun. In the branches of the hedgerow tunnel around her, smaller, less murderous birds hop from thorn to thorn, singing sweetly, trying to distract her from the grim task ahead.

When Ida comes upon an old man dragging a corpse along the thorned tunnel by the ankles, she knows she is close. That, and the crows which tell her it is time to prepare. She pulls a leather muzzle over her nose and mouth, buckles it behind her head. The muzzle holds dried herbs in its long, pronounced beak, to keep the stench of the dead and the dying at bay. It will keep the flies away, too. Men often empty their bowels when they die, and the stink of shit and piss will be heard to bear without the muzzle.

* * *

The King finishes a bladder of wine and throws it to the ground, belching luxuriously. It is time, he thinks. He can wait no more.

He gestures. A young boy unhooks the hunting horn from the pommel of the King’s saddle and raises it awkwardly to the King’s lips. The King tries and fails to blow into it from his strange position, and after a moment’s futile effort, clumsily wrenches the horn from the boy, kicking him in the belly for his efforts. The boy falls and stays down, head bent meekly.

The King raises the horn to his lips with a series of graceless, fumbling movements, and blows.

Nothing happens.

He licks his lips, blows once more.

A high, clear tone bellows out through the forest.

The hounds, let off from their leashes, hurl themselves at the scent.

The men spur their horses, cheering.

The King throws the horn at the fallen boy and kicks Njal into a canter.

The hunt, at last, has begun.

* * *

The man grunts as he pulls his burlap-wrapped burden behind him. Ida thinks he looks familiar. He is a miller, she realises, from a small township over the hill.

Ida moves to one side of the narrow pathway to let the miller pass more easily. He has only a single son, she remembers. A gangly youth with lovely dark eyes.

Eyes that now stare at the blue sky, unseeing, from a gap in the burlap shroud.

The miller passes. His son’s body drags along the ground in his wake. Ida thinks their encounter might be without comment, but then the miller stops, turns, and fixes Ida with a rheumy, hate-filled stare. She half-expected this. His grief needs a target, and she is the only other living person within range.

‘There is no honour in what you do,’ the miller croaks. He is crying. Tears cut twin streaks down his filthy face.

Nobody is honourable in death, Ida thinks, and not for the first time.

She bows her head demurely and keeps walking, unmoved by the man’s torment.

‘No honour, bitch!’

She keeps walking along the path until she can hear his cries no more.

* * *

In the forest, a young girl bound hand and foot and tied to a tree with a silken rope stands, unsteadily. On either side of her pretty head: two screaming lumps of pain. Her eyes are covered with a blindfold. She has worked her feet free of their bonds, and standing allows her to hook her tied hands over the sharp stub of a branch sticking out of the tree behind her. After a frantic time pulling, sawing, and rubbing the branch, her hands break apart. She rips her blindfold off, blinks in the light of a new day. Dawn, she realises. The hunt will begin soon. She will not hear it announced by horn, for there is wax in her earholes, and she does not have the time or strength to dig it out.

A thick rope remains looped around her neck, binding her to the tree. She works at it with desperate fingers, turning to get a better grip on the rope and loosen the tension so she can better attack the knots. This is when she sees the trunk of the oak tree, clearly. It is covered in moss and lichen and strange, fleshy protuberances that look like ears. She knows they are toadstools, that peasants sometimes collected before the King forbade foraging, to fry with onions and garlic. She also knows they are listening, so she puts her mouth close to the funghi, and whispers something into a quivering orifice.

The tree listens, as the trees have always done, and the girl finally slips free of her noose, and without further thought, starts to run.

Behind her, a horn sounds out, clear and threatening. After that, the baying of dogs echoes through the forest, but the girl does not hear them.

The oaks do, though.

* * *

After a short while, the path and the thorned blockades lining it abruptly end. The tunnel opens onto a low rise, which dips steeply to form a long slope that leads down to a valley, at the bottom of which, a river runs red.

The slope was meadowland until the war, thickly carpeted with grasses and flowers.

Now, it is a slaughter meadow. Men lie dead, some three or four bodies deep in freshly churned mud that slowly hardens in the spring sun.

Ida passes the bloated carcass of a horse, festooned with crows that always go for the soft parts first. She makes her way across the battlefield. It has been well-picked already, although it was her intent to wait until all flesh of consequence has been claimed. The bodies of the wealthy and those high in status have been collected by their families. The richer a man is, the more he is afforded an appropriate degree of mourning, Ida knows. What remains are the common dead. No one has come to claim them. They will be gathered, soon, and dumped into several large pits that are being dug presently. Ida can see men at work with shovels and picks. She can see earth flying. These men, who fought and lost, will be rolled into the ground as one, limbs tangled, faces pressed together, and then they will be sealed away from the light with thick clods of soil.

Later, as soon as the word gets out that the field is clear, the desperate ones will come. They will dig into the pits and bring up the dead, checking for missed treasures, missed coins or buttons or spoons or keepsakes.

Ida needs to work fast, before she misses her chance.

She stops at the body of a red-haired boy who could not have been older than four-and-ten. He has a ragged hole in his chest, and a large sword cut across his face. His nose is sliced clean in two, and one eye is missing.

His ears, however, are unscathed.

Ida crouches and removes her shears from her basket.

Time to get to work, she thinks, as the sun climbs ever higher.

* * *

The King is uncomfortable on his saddle. Njal is spooked, and although he is war-trained, he rears often, eyes rolling, champing thick foam at the bit. Something about the forest bothers him today. The King is growing enraged at his unpredictability.

It doesn’t help that the hounds, despite picking up the scent of the quarry easily enough, have now lost it.

They found the tree where the girl was tied easily enough. The broken bonds lie bloodied and frayed at the base of the giant oak they were tethered to. The hounds descend on the ropes in a frenzy, sniffing and howling, but cannot pick up the girl’s scent. Instead, they mill about, barking. The men dismount, searching for physical traces, but there are no tracks to be found either.

The King, who does not like a spoiled hunt, heaves himself off his horse. He walks to the tree, which is covered with moss and creepers and strange, ear-shaped mushrooms. He finds a few straggled strands of long, fair hair, and plucks one from where it is trapped between two flakes of bark.

He offers it to the dogs and they sniff eagerly, but no amount of casting about results in a trail.

The King frowns. This is not usual behaviour for his hounds. They are some of the finest hunting dogs in the country, bred for the sole purpose of tracking and flushing prey from any conceivable hiding place.

The King looks at the tree, at the ear-like growths protruding from the trunk. They seem to be moving, as if responding to his presence.

One growth in particular captures the King’s attention. Something gold gleams beneath the reddish, jelly-like fungal lobe.

The King moves closer, hardly believing his eyes.

Then he rears back, suddenly understanding.

The flash of gold is an earring. It pierces the lower part of the ear-shaped fungus as if the growth is the real, pierced man’s ear, not a plant.

The King’s anger doubles in strength.

‘There is witchwork at play here,’ he announces darkly.

Then he sets about hacking the tree clean of its unnatural organs.

Meanwhile, a girl who is fair of hair and fleet of foot runs, and gains ground.

* * *

The cottage of Cunning Joan is a low place made of stone and thatch, with a crooked chimney stack perched atop a sagging roof. The floors are covered in heavy flagstones and chicken droppings. An open fire roars and cackles, belching thick black smoke that is never fully drawn up the chimney. It paints the walls of Cunning Joan’s home with soot.

A large table dominates the middle of the dwelling, surrounded by the accoutrements of her trade: cards, a crystal scrying ball, a pestle and mortar, grain grinding stones, lunar volvelles—disks that turn to show the changing phases of the moon. Bunches of herbs hang from wooden shelves and hooks. Animals sit on every free surface they can find: cats, crows, mice, a hedgehog. A rich variety of symbols are carved into the wooden rafters above: eyes, hands, phalluses, horns, daisy wheels. Rowan crosses jostle for position alongside hagstones threaded on catgut twine and bundles of keys hung for protection. Candles flicker. A cauldron simmers, letting off fragrant steam.

Cunning Joan waits for Ida.

A knock on the door sounds out, disturbing several sleeping cats who stretch and yawn in disgust.

‘Come,’ says Cunning Joan.

Ida enters. She is flushed from a day out in the sun, and out of breath.

She places a heavy basket on the table before Cunning Joan.

‘I have them,’ she says, blinking as acrid smoke stings her eyes.

Cunning Joan looks into the basket of ears, then nods, satisfied.

‘What do you need them for?’ Ida asks, breaking her own rule and giving into curiosity.

‘I need them to kill a king,’ Joan replies. ‘Follow me.’

The pair take the basket and make their way into the forest behind Cunning Joan’s cottage.

* * *

The hunting party continues on foot, for the undergrowth has become too thick to navigate on horseback. The King is motivated to walk quickly by a curious combination of feelings and memories: a sense of injustice at a quick pleasure denied, excitement for the unexpected challenge the quarry presents, frustration that his hounds are not performing as they should, unease at the forest, which seems to be closing in around him, and the memories of quarries past, all of whom died messily: the plump girl who tripped and fell head-first onto a sword, the red-head who would not let go of her innards, wrestling with the hounds for ownership of them. The tall, lanky maid with large breasts he had personally carved off. He had given the obscene, bloody orbs to his court jester to juggle, a grisly spectacle that kept the King amused for a number of days, before they started to fester and smell.

All these thoughts and feelings keep his feet moving forward across mossy fells and tangled snarls of bramble patches. His men maintain a respectful distance around him at first, some going before, some aft, so he is fully protected. This becomes more difficult to achieve the further into the woods they venture. Tree trunks cluster in increasingly tight bunches, making it difficult to trespass unless single-file. Their branches interlace, creating thatched walls of foliage that become more and more impossible to break through without slashing and hacking with swords and knives. Hard work, back-breaking labour that the men of the hunting party consider beneath them. Sweat pours, oaths fall from dry lips with increasing frequency.

The King ignores it all. He has, in his mind’s eye, an image: a young, fawn-like maiden, fair haired, vulnerable. He wonders how her flesh will feel in his hands when it is covered in blood.

* * *

Ida watches Cunning Joan work. The old woman moves from tree to tree, distributing the cut ears of unfortunate men amongst the ancient oaks. She pastes them in place with a thick porridge from an iron skillet she has brought with her. When the crone has finished with one tree and moves to the next, Ida steps in to survey Cunning Joan’s artistry. She pushes her face closer to the trunks, which are clothed, she can see, with dozens of fleshy protuberances. They sprout from the bark as if grown there, instead of stuck in place with the oat paste.

‘Do they listen for you?’ She asks, already knowing the answer.

Cunning Joan smiles, continues deeper into the woods.

‘The forest,’ she says, ‘Is always listening.’ She puts her head to a trunk, waiting for something. There is a pause.

‘This way,’ she says eventually, shuffling off.

‘But the King hunts here,’ Ida replies, hurrying to keep up. ‘It is forbidden for us to trespass.’

Cunning Joan spits.

‘The King hunts forbidden quarry,’ she snarls. ‘He violates this land. It does not want him anymore.’ She places a hand lovingly on a tree. ‘As if any man can own a forest. Trees belong to the Mother. Not a mortal king.’

A high, wounded scream rips through the air, lending credence to the old woman’s words. Forbidden quarry, Ida thinks. She has heard tales of the King’s private hunts. Girls have gone missing in great numbers since he ascended to the throne. Among them, high-born girls, to the surprise of many except Ida. She has known men like the King before. Men who consider everyone else of a lesser value. Men who place no importance on the lives of others.

The scream sounds again.

The oak trees shudder and shake, swaying and creaking in unison, as if pained by the sound.

Cunning Joan smiles, folds her arms.

‘Here she comes,’ she croons, nodding in anticipation. ‘Fair bait makes for unfair prey.’

Ida does not know what this means, but she has a feeling she is not too far from finding out.

* * *

The King and his men are mired so deep into Holburn forest that the sun is completely concealed by leaves. The world around them is a murky, damp, green place. Brambles slash and hack at their legs. The horses have long since given up. The hounds baulk at every step, every shadow, of which there are many. The King suspects it will not be long until they bolt, and his men with them. There are mutterings of witches and devils, of monstrous things among the trees. The King does not doubt their fear for one second, but his blood is high. He thinks only of the quarry, flat on her back. Her hair in his fists. Her eyes filled with tears, staring lifelessly at a mottled sky.

Another few steps, and suddenly, a scream. High-pitched, anguished. The scream of a young girl lost in the forest.

The King draws his sword, slashes his way to the front of the party. Men fall, caught unawares. The dogs break free, run whimpering into the gloom. He cares not.

‘I have her!’ he cries. ‘At last, I have her!’

* * *

Ida and Cunning Joan come to a small clearing in the forest, a clearing circled by a group of exceptionally large beeches and alders. In the centre, a young girl shivers and shakes. She is screaming. She will not stop. The trees surrounding her dance in distress. They sway erratically from side to side. Trunks twist. Branches whip about wildly. Roots, long buried in ancient soil, rip free from the ground. The earth boils with movement and the clearing gets a little smaller, the space within a little tighter, as the women approach.

Cunning Joan is not afraid. She moves as if she expects this disturbance, making her way over to the young girl. Taking the terrified quarry by the shoulders, Joan embraces her hard.

Relief crawls across the girl’s face.

The two know each other.

Quarry, Ida thinks again. She can see rope burns around the girl’s neck, wrists, and ankles. There is blood on her thin shift, and in her long, fair hair.

‘Come, child,’ Cunning Joan says, but the girl does not hear. Ida can see something waxen and hard in each of her ears. She points to them. Cunning Joan frowns.

Grabs the girl's hand.

‘Come,’ she repeats, pulling gently. ‘You are safe now. Come away.’

The girl nods. Then she screams once more, for good measure.

Ida hears a cry in response. It is close.

‘I have you!’ it roars.

It is the cry of a king.

Fair bait, Cunning Joan said.

The trees move restlessly, no longer anguished, but angry.

The quarry smiles. ‘Did I do well?’ she asks, as the dishevelled figure of a man wearing red velvet bursts into the clearing, drawn by her duplicitous cries.

Cunning Joan kisses the girl once on each cheek by way of confirmation, then leads her away as the trees, no longer able to contain their rage, close in on the King. His yells of triumph quickly turn to screams of agony as roots and limbs intertwine, are ripped apart without ceremony. Blood fountains in the thick, wet air, and the trees quiver in ecstasy as they drink of it. Blue blood is rich and nutritious, they seem to be saying, as they suck the King dry.

‘You did well,’ Cunning Joan says, softly, as chunks of exalted flesh rain down all around her. ‘You did very well indeed, child.’

* * *

In Cunning Joan’s cottage, the women clean the wounded girl silently, tending to scrapes and cuts and bruises as they find them. She tosses and turns with fevered nightmares until persuaded to drink a hot concoction of herbs. Then she calms enough to fall into a dead sleep. Her skirts have hitched due to her writhing, revealing dried blood on the insides of her thighs.

Ida sighs, dips a soft cloth into the cauldron of steaming water hanging over the fire.

We have killed a king, she thinks, wringing out the cloth firmly.

Tomorrow, she is going back to the battlefield. Not for ears, this time, but for lips.

The trees deserve a voice, too, Cunning Joan says.

Ida will help give them one.

Gemma Amor is a horror fiction author, podcaster, artist and voice actor from Bristol, in the U.K. She writes for the wildly popular NoSleep Podcast and various other horror fiction audio dramas. My traditionally published debut FULL IMMERSION is out from Angry Robot in September 2022. Find her at @manylittlewords on Twitter and Instagram.

Repped by Mark Falkin at Falkin Literary.

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The cover art for Grimdark Magazine issue #35 was created by Carlos Diaz based on Caver, Continue by Caitlin Starling.

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Grimdark Magazine has chosen to maintain the authors’ original language (eg. Australian English, American English, UK English) for each story.

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