Hello, all. It’s been a while, as things have been quiet for me on the fiction front. Until this month – in October, I had three new stories, in three new venues. All these stories are linked by a common thread of parental anxiety, viewed from three different angles.

Last Halloween – The newest residents of a perfect community grapple with the bargain they made to be here. Available for free on the FLAPPERHOUSE website, or in print as part of FLAPPERHOUSE 19

The Shrike – A grieving mother finds an unlikely focus for her grief and anger. Available to read or listen for free (Read by Sandra M Odell) at Pseudopod, the horror fiction podcast.

The Green Tunnel – A wounded woman tries to lose herself solo hiking the Appalachian Trial. Available in the latest issue of Lamplight Magazine.

All of these venues mean a great deal to me, and I’m honored to have such perfect homes for this anxious little trilogy. In due time, I will post the complete texts of these stories here, but I hope you’ll check out all three.

Happy Halloween, and I’ll see you soon.

I was fortunate enough to be invited to submit to Doug Murano and D. Alexander Ward’s “Shadows Over Main Street” anthology, which merged Lovecraft inspired stories with small-town Americana. My contribution started with my interest in the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the sense of pending apocalypse nested in my own safe conception of the past, and unspooled from there.

If you enjoy this blend of Mythos and Mayberry, then check out the rest of collection, featuring stories from Nick Mamatas, Gary Braunbeck, Lucy Snyder, Josh Malerman, and more. The second edition is available at Amazon, and many other booksellers.

 

Erica holds onto my hand as we sit on the couch and stare into the wide eye of her father’s color TV. Her sweaty palm pulses in time with her galloping heartbeat, and she sucks at the air in noisy hiccups. I have to press my lips together to keep from screaming at her to be quiet.

They’re showing the photographs again, the new ones. All week in school we’ve talked about missiles and blast radiuses and blockades, the approach of halloween all but forgotten. Our paper-mache masks, two grinning witches, sit half-finished in the corner, casualties of the Crisis. But it’s all changed again, and we can’t catch up.

“The purpose and function of the structure are still anyone’s guess, but by now it’s clear that the Soviets had another purpose on the island of Cuba entirely. We still don’t have a good explanation for how a sinkhole of that size appeared seemingly over night.”

The man on the television repeats what he can about the new photographs as sweat beads on his upper lip, vivid and crisp on the Dahlberg’s new screen. The man on the television doesn’t know how to describe them, keeps tripping over his words as he tries to make sense of the aerial photographs. No one can. I can hear Mr. Dahlberg screaming in the kitchen, loud and angry.

“As of an hour ago, there’s been no more communication with the USSR, and the President’s demands for an explanation have gone unanswered.” Continue reading “The Crisis” →