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Phantom-Fighter-Jules de Grandin

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Ghost-Seer-Aylmer Vance

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Night of the Hunter (1955)

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Psychomanteum #18

Editorial

It’s been hot in Sheffield, this month. More like South Carolina than the north of England. The sort of hot that brings stickiness and sleepless nights. Where the days are like breathing soup, and the nights are stultifying. This sort of weather has a peculiar effect on me. Something about it serves to stir the creative murk; ideas surface from the mud, like alligators rising to feed. Must be my country upbringing.

But it’s too hot to have the computer on, so I tend to stick with that old standby, the yellow legal pad. For as long as I can remember, a yellow legal pad has been my go-to when it comes to noodling around with ideas and story notes. While I have a nice hardback notebook to write story plots and character profiles in, I still find myself defaulting to the legal pad when I need to think through a story problem.

It’s not quite automatic writing (something I’ve experimented with, but that’s another editorial entirely), but it’s similar. It’s a way of letting the subconscious come out to play, and freeing up some idea-space. There’s a sense of the ephemeral about it; it’s not for posterity, it’s for tomorrow, or the day after. I can write until a scene or an idea make sense, no matter how many (or how few) pages it requires, and move on, unencumbered.

There’s a strange sort of freedom in doodling out an idea in a disorderly fashion; in breaking a concept down into lines, bubbles, squares and sketches. In writing horizontally and then vertically, as room runs out. In making annotations in the margins, scraps of dialogue or even just stick figure representations of characters in a confrontational scene. It’s all part of the creative labour. Writing is easy; thinking of what to write is hard. Sometimes, I can see it clearly in my mind’s eye. I know what goes where and when. I assemble the pieces like a jigsaw puzzle. But other times, it’s more like a murder that I’m trying to solve. Lots of false leads and clues that make no sense until I prise them apart and scatter them across a lined yellow page of legal paper.

If you’re ever stuck on something – not just a writing problem – give it a try. You’d be amazed at what your brain can do, if you give it some room to run.

Reading:

Stingray Shuffle by Tim Dorsey. Knights of the Dinner Table Bundles of Trouble 15, 16 and 17. Cunning Folk by Tabitha Stanmore. After Dark by Manly Wade Wellman.

Watching:

Interlopers (2025). The Gold, Seasons One and Two. Ganja & Hess (1973). Dr Terror’s House of Horrors (1965). Doomwatch (1972). The Turkish Detective, Season One.

Listening:

Old Gods of Appalachia, Season Five. Hellboy & the BPRD: The Goddess of Manhattan. Various Lo-Fi mixes.

News

This month was a slow one, as far as work goes. I’ve been mostly preoccupied finishing up the first draft of Stand at Callenspire as I write this. I guesstimate another two to three weeks of work, which isn’t as much as it sounds. I also sold two new short stories, to Cohesion Press’ newest SNAFU anthology, SNAFU: Contagion, and Neon Hemlock Press’ new sword and sorcery anthology, Shatter the Sun. More on those later.

This month also sees the last of the Baron Vordenburg stories, “A Night at Zermatt Station”, posted. I’ve got a few others in progress, but none finished as yet. I’m hoping I’ll have a few new ones ready to post starting in October (Halloween, natch), but it depends on my schedule between now and then. In the meantime, why not grab a copy of the collection?

New Essay – Deep Time & Devil Dinosaur

I’ve got an essay on Jack Kirby’s Devil Dinosaur included in the new Jack Kirby retrospective from Becky Books, Jack of All Comics. It’s available from all reputable online retailers, and at Amazon. Why not grab a copy today?

New Essay – God’s Madman: Abraham Van Helsing

I posted a new(ish) Nightmare Men essay on Bram Stoker’s other contribution to pop culture to the site this month. It originally appeared in 2011 or so at the Black Gate Magazine site, but I’ve tidied it up some and updated it. Subscribe and read it for free.

New Essay – The Mummy’s Hand (1940)

I posted a new Silver Screams essay on the 1940 sophomore slump, The Mummy’s Hand. Karloff is nowhere in sight, the mummy is named Kharis, and there’s some plucky comic relief. Subscribe and read it for free.

New Serial – Shadow of the Drowned City

Earlier this year I wrote a multi-part Arkham Horror serial, Shadows of the Drowned City, which followed on from events in the most recent game expansion, The Drowned City. The first instalment, “Paris”, just dropped over at the new Arkham Horror website. Read it here, for free. Or listen to the audio version, narrated by Todd Menesses!

New Short Story – “Some Notes on Peter Osman’s The Green-Eyed Shadow“

Besides the serial above, I’ve got a new Arkham Horror short story available to read for free. “Some Notes…” finds everyone’s favourite sanitarium-confined cannibal, Philip Drew, writing a very snippy letter to the editors of Arkham’s own pulp magazine, Tales of Nevermore. Read it here.

New Short Story – “A Night at Zermatt Station”

I’ve posted a brand new Baron Vordenburg story to the site this month. “A Night at Zermatt Station” finds the monster-hunter facing off with a rival hunter and a pack of angry lycanthropes in the mountains of Switzerland. Subscribe and read it for free. And remember, the first twelve Vordenburg stories (plus a novella!) are now available in a nifty digital collection at my Ko-fi shop! Why not grab a copy?

Reminder – Return of the monster-Men

Last year, I was given the opportunity to write the novelisation of Mike Wolfer’s comic book miniseries, Return of the Monster-Men, and give it an ending worthy of both the work Wolfer had done, and Burroughs himself. My efforts are now up for preorder, if you’re interested. Hopefully I’ll get to write further adventures for Number 13 – or Otto, as he likes to be called – but only time (and sales) will tell. Preorder a copy today!

Reminder – Stand at Callenspire

Stand at Callenspire is my first foray into Mantic’s Kings of War setting, and it’s a doozy: elves, halflings and seagoing Neriticans versus a mysterious new foe that threatens all of Mantica. If you enjoyed my Space Marine Conquests novel, Apocalypse, I think you’ll enjoy this one. It’s got a similar vibe to it. Preorder a copy today!

Monthly Spotlight“Ghosts of Demesnus”

This is, I think, one of the better things I wrote for the Age of Sigmar setting. The short story finds Gardus Steelsoul (hero of Plague Garden, Black Pyramid, Hammerhal, et al.) returning to his hometown to reconnect with his mortal life – and destroy a plague cult victimising the downtrodden.

Gardus is a character near and dear to my heart; one of the few unequivocally good guys in any Warhammer setting. I took him from a few lines in a gamebook to one of the most popular characters in the setting. Not many writers can say that. Grab a copy here.

Monthly Story“The Romero Transference”

“The Romero Transference” first appeared in print in the 2015 Chaosium anthology, Atomic Age Cthulhu. It was the second outing for Indrid Cold – wizard, worm-man and patriot. Cold is a funny character; he’s a result of me playing mix-and-match with several of Lovecraft’s concepts, and then shovelling them into an espionage milieu. It’s not an original concept, I admit – Charles Stross, Tim Powers and Caitlin Kiernan have done similar – but I like to think Cold is a special case.

T minus 24 hours, fifteen minutes, twelve seconds

“It’s not a question of if, gentlemen, but of when,” Freeman said. He leaned back in his chair and looked around the conference table. “Einstein said it best, ‘mutually assured destruction’.” The other men in the room shifted uncomfortably in their chairs, to a man thinking thoughts full of fire and Hiroshima shadows on Heartland walls. Freeman let it sink in.

The clapboard office was hot, the window fan barely stirring the air. Outside, the Frenchman Flat facility was baked brown by the Nevada sun. Frenchman Flat was south of Yucca Flat. Officially, it was a dry lake bed. Unofficially it was a federal landing strip. In reality, it was Freeman’s personal fiefdom, thanks to a healthy blend of paranoia and preparedness on the part of the current administration.

He let his gaze drift out the window while his guests chewed over the imminent apocalypse. Freeman had designed the facility himself, and selected the staff personally. He didn’t know their names. As far as he was concerned, they were all anonymous drones with similar high and tight haircuts and smooth faces, picked from a federally approved pool of potential candidates. But he knew every inch of the facility. He had gone over ever foot dry, cracked ground with a theodolite and a notebook. The layout was based on a theoretical geometric coil which limited the number of right angles and provided a dedicated hyperspatial run-off.  It had only taken a year to finish construction; as far as Freeman was concerned, it had taken far too long. They were running too slow.

Two years earlier, the Russians had made their first successful atomic test. Things had escalated quickly and where before there had been one superpower, there were now two, both mutually hostile. The nuclear shadow had been cast and the world was out of time; rockets in Red Square and the almanacs predicting a decidedly nuclear winter. 

The men in Freeman’s office were a mix of bureaucrats and brass, military men, and politicians. The men who thought they made things happen, as Peaslee had been fond of calling them back when Freeman had been on the tenure track at the university. Freeman glanced at the class ring on his finger. He hadn’t seen Peaslee since Potsdam. Wingate wouldn’t approve of what he was preparing to propose, he thought, but needs must when the devil drove. Necessity was the mother of invention but the child of desperation.

Freeman cleared his throat. They had stewed long enough. “It’s an ugly phrase, isn’t it? It implies that we are locked on course. The future is immutable. Someone’s finger will slip maybe today, maybe in ten years, and we will burn. Mutually assured destruction,” he repeated. He tapped the top file on the pile in front of him and continued, “Or perhaps not.”

“You’d do well to remember that you’re not in a classroom, Doctor,” one of the men grunted. “Are we finally going to get to see what this little money-sink of yours is for?”

Freeman frowned, stung. “Point taken,” he said. “And this ‘money-sink’ of mine, as you call it, is going to save the lives of every American from nuclear annihilation.”

“How?” one of the others said.

In reply, Freeman slid several files forward. “These are copies of the relevant portions of the Hoccleve texts, among others.”

“What about-?” someone began.

Freeman spoke up quickly, re-evaluating. Someone had done their homework. “Those as well, and I’ve included reports from the subsequent Australian expedition by those involved, including myself.”

“Have we had contact with them recently?” the quick study continued, “Einstein, Oppenheimer, or one of the others from Groves’ old circus?”

“Nothing recorded,” Freeman said. “Which is why we’re due, according to-” his face twisted in a grimace, “-certain sources.”

“Care to name these sources?” someone said. The quick study leaned forward, face pale.

“Was it Cold?” he asked softly.

He wasn’t asking about the temperature. Freeman swallowed. “Agent Indrid Cold has been invaluable to this project, yes. Lieutenant General Groves made the recommendation, as did the director of the Office of Scientific Intelligence.  He has also pinpointed a potential subject zero for transference; an – ah – first contact scenario, if you will.”

“You’re going to kidnap one of them,” the quick study grated.

“We are going to expedite a mutually beneficial arrangement, yes,” Freeman said tersely. He leaned forward. “It will work gentlemen. It has worked, and it will work again. The American people will survive the coming storm.”

“In one form or another,” the quick study muttered.

No one thought the comment was in good taste.

T minus twelve hours, twenty minutes, ten seconds

Romero gnawed on a knuckle as they read the charges. Freeman watched him from the back of the room and thought, gotcha. They almost hadn’t. Romero, whatever his other faults, wasn’t inobservant. When the MPs had come for him, he’d already been on the move, heading south, away from Nellis Air Force Base. They’d caught him quickly enough, thanks to Cold.

Freeman glanced towards where the spook stood, leaning against the wall and smiling. The name suited him. He was like an icicle dressed in Hoover’s best, black on white, tie and shiny shoes, black gloves, but it looked wrong, like a wrapper on a rotten fish.

As if he’d heard Freeman’s thoughts, Cold’s ever-present grin widened unpleasantly. His face was like wax and he had eyes as dark and as black as the lenses of sunglasses in his breast pocket. “Good things come to those who wait,” he said. There was something about his voice…Freeman shuddered and looked away.

Cold worked for one of the alphabet agencies, or maybe all of them. Hell, he might have started half of them. Freeman, in contrast, was a consultant. And Romero…Romero was an asset. One acquired just in time. Time was a valuable commodity these days, the most precious resource on the planet, depending on how you thought about it. It was all about time, or the lack thereof.  They had no time, and that made what they did next very crucial indeed.

Romero made a sound half-way between a groan and a snarl as the verdict was read out. His restraints clattered as he gripped at the air. Romero wasn’t a brute; indeed, he was handsome enough, in Freeman’s opinion. Too bad such a good-looking package contained such a nasty surprise. He couldn’t restrain a smile. It faltered when Cold pushed away from the wall and joined him in watching Romero being led out.

“He’ll do nicely,” Cold said.

“Yes,” Freeman said. He couldn’t help but stare at Cold’s face, especially the spots where the pearlescent skin twitched and stretched. He swallowed a sudden rush of bile. They’d warned him about people like Cold, back at the university. There were stories about midnight festivals in out of the way houses and deep, dark tumours under American soil where things bred and squirmed that made the Commies look like Minnesotans on a bender.

“I’ll have him brought to your patch at Frenchman Flat tonight, Mr. Freeman,” Cold said, his smile threatening to split his face, “After he’s been debriefed.” Cold never stopped grinning, that was the word from on high.

“That’s quicker than I expected.”

“Soonest started is soonest done,” Cold said. “The Red Chinese took Seoul last Wednesday, Mr. Freeman.” He said it as if it were no more important than the weather. What do we look like to you, Freeman thought, and then wondered where the thought had come from. It clung to the surface of the mind like a stubborn mosquito. Do you even care that we’re facing Armageddon? He didn’t ask either question. He didn’t think knowing the answer would make him feel any better.

Instead, he settled for protocol pedantry. “Doctor,” Freeman said curtly.

Cold smiled benignly. “Doctor Freeman,” he said. “Time waits for no man and the shadows lengthen.”

“Very poetic,” Freeman said.

Cold’s smile didn’t waver. “I’ll see you at Frenchman Flat, Doctor.”

Freeman watched him walk away and tried not to think about the things that seemed to be moving in the other man’s coat. “Evil the mind that is held by no head,” he muttered. 

T minus five minutes, eight seconds

It was hot.

Strange shapes swam through the waves of heat that coruscated across the space between his office and the Box. Lupine, feline, of no earthly genus, the shapes swelled and reached and then burst like clouds. Freeman ignored them as he strode through the dust and sunshine.

He’d gotten some sleep. Not much. His dreams had been bad; no, worse. They were always bad, but these had been horrific, full of empty cities, a hundred thousand Hiroshimas, coated in blankets of ash and shadow-shapes, with no more substance than the dusty beneath his feet, hunting him through the ash fall of a nuclear winter.

He knew the Russians were working on their own plans, their own back-doors and fire-escapes and bolt-holes. Earth might be reduced to slag, but the great Soviet state would continue on, lurching towards oblivion on some vast and multi-angled, multi-dimensional plateau that could barely be seen, let alone colonized.  Then, it could hardly be worse than Siberia, eh comrade?

Would they still be Russians then? Would America be America, when America had been pounded into atomic dust? They would be minds without bodies, minds with new bodies, thrown forward or backward into a chronal fallout shelter…would they thank him, or would they curse him?

Cold was waiting for him in the control booth, ever-present grin in place. “Ready, Doctor?” Cold said as Freeman entered the booth and someone handed him a cup of coffee.

Freeman didn’t bother to answer him. Now that he was on the cusp of it, he wanted to say no. He wanted to take his time, to explore the ramifications of transference. But they didn’t have time. Instead he leaned over a technician’s shoulder and checked the control panel. The Box was part bunker and part temple. He had designed it himself, built it to call up and cage what came.

Freeman looked through the observation window. Romero was the only thing in the Box, strapped tight into a steel chair that looked as if it had been requisitioned from the base’s dentist. He had been doped to the gills. There was no reason for him to be conscious for this. “You’re looking green, Doctor,” Cold said.

Freeman didn’t look at him. “What we’re doing is very close to human sacrifice,” he said.

“Romero is a murderer, Doctor,” Cold said. “And sacrifices must be made for the greater good.”

“I didn’t say I wasn’t going to do it,” Freeman said, stung.  Who was Cold to lecture him on sacrifices? “I said I wasn’t entirely comfortable with the implications.” The truth, if a bit hypocritical, he thought, even as the words left his mouth.

Cold made a sound that might have been a chuckle, though whether because of Freeman’s words or his thoughts, the latter couldn’t say. Several of the drones seated in the booth shifted uncomfortably. Cold had that effect on them. In the spook’s case, familiarity didn’t breed contempt. The longer you were around Cold, the more frightened of him-of what he represented-you became.

Freeman took a sip from the cup of coffee in his hand and swallowed convulsively as his eyes slid up the observation window to fix on the man in the box. “Time?” he asked, breaking the tense silence of the control booth.

“Two ‘til,” someone murmured, checking a wrist watch.

Freeman licked his lips and looked around the booth, taking in the pale sweaty faces and nervous expressions. They had good reason to be nervous. There were a thousand ways that things could go wrong in such an operation.

“You’re certain this is the time?” he said, looking at Cold.

“As one can be,” Cold said lazily.

“That’s not good enough,” Freeman said, knowing it didn’t matter.

“One minute,” another technician, or maybe the same one as earlier, said.

“Too late now,” Cold said.

Romero twitched, making the chair rattle. Freeman tensed and looked back at him. “Did we check those straps?” he murmured, more to himself than anyone else. Someone said yes and he relaxed.

“Nervous, are we?” Cold said from beside his elbow.

Freeman jumped, startled. Cold ignored his startled curse and leaned forward, his face nearly pressed to the glass of the observation window. “Of course I’m nervous. We’ve never tried this before,” Freeman stuttered.

“The Russians have already made contact…” Cold began.

“I understand that,” Freeman said, trying to control his revulsion as he watched Cold’s face move as the agent spoke. “But this is not the same as that. We are-”

“Contact,” someone said softly. 

The air in the box went wet and heavy all at once, like the bottom falling out of a storm cloud.  Water beaded on the observation glass and dark, damp patches grew on the reinforced concrete walls. Even in the control booth, the sudden change in temperature was obvious. Freeman dabbed at his forehead with a handkerchief, his eyes never leaving the man in the box.

He twisted and jerked as if he were dancing to some melody undetectable by those gathered in the booth. Froth built at the corners of his wide-open mouth and his tongue waggled like a worm emerging from a red tunnel. His eyes bulged and the frame of the chair gave a groan as he jerked. The straps held.

“Is this normal?” Freeman asked, unable to look away.

“Define ‘normal’,” Cold said and gave a wet chuckle that set Freeman’s stomach to roiling. Romero screamed and slumped forward. “Transference complete,” Cold said, stepping back from the window.

“How can you tell?” Freeman demanded.

“He’s stopped screaming,” Cold said.

Freeman swallowed and looked at Romero. “Status,” he barked.

“Breathing normally,” one of the drones said. “Vitals are good.”

“As promised,” Cold said, still grinning. “Well, Doctor? You wanted to question one of them. Here is your opportunity.” He gestured to the door that led from the booth to the box.

Freeman licked his lips. “Will he-will it-understand me?”

“Yes,” Cold said. He cocked his head. Freeman realized that he hadn’t ever seen Cold blink.

“Are you sure?” Freeman said.

Cold said nothing. Freeman knew what he was thinking. He was stalling, and Cold knew it. The funny thing was that he’d volunteered for this. Hell, he’d suggested it. And now, on the rim of the gulf, he hesitated to take that last step. He closed his eyes and took a breath. Then he opened them and gestured to the door. “After you,” he said.

T plus two minutes, five seconds

His mouth was dry and he could feel the itchy tingle of a migraine building at the base of his skull. He’d been working too hard, not getting enough sleep. There wasn’t any time for sleep, just naps, full of monsters and phantasms and clinging worries.

The box smelled like a swamp. The air was like syrup and his clothes were instantly damp. Cold didn’t seem to be bothered, but then, he never was. This was old hat to Cold. He’d been doing this since before the first crate of tea had hit the waters of Boston Harbor, if you listened to scuttlebutt.  Better the devil you know, that was what they’d told him after the first meeting. Better the devil that was as American as apple pie and Betsy Ross and witch-burning.

Romero moaned.

Freeman froze. There was nothing human in that sound. He’d known that might be the case, but knowing and seeing were two different things. “Are those straps secured?” he hissed.  There was a chance, however slight, that their calculations had been off, that they had not gotten their target, but something else instead.

“He won’t hurt you,” Cold said, circling the chair and its twitching burden. “They are not a violent people, in my experience.”

“They aren’t people at all,” Freeman said harshly. Cold’s grin didn’t waver. He simply looked at Freeman with what the latter assumed was patient disdain. Freeman grimaced and stepped forward, sinking to his haunches beside the chair. “Can you hear me?” he said.

Romero’s eyes found his. They no longer bulged, but instead looked drowsy. His mouth opened and he gurgled something. It was English, but mangled into incoherence. Cold had said that might happen. After transference it took a few hours or even a few days for them to attain full control, which meant that they had plenty of time to isolate and restrain it, to question it and learn what they needed.  To learn what they needed to know to save American lives in the event of a full-blown nuclear strike.

Freeman hesitated, overcome with the thought of millions of minds jumping from their bodies at the moment of destruction, hurtling to safety in new bodies, a new time. Oh, there’d be a few who’d go ahead of them, to prepare the way, in imitation of the thing that crouched in Romero’s body, colonists to another time, readying the world for invasion – no, migration.

He stood and plucked at his shirt. The Box was still full of heat and tropical smells. “How long can we hold him?” he said, looking at Cold. The spook shrugged.

“Until you wish me to send him back,” Cold said. There was a device, Freeman knew. He had seen it reproduced in certain diaries, but frankly, he had no idea how it worked. The visitors who were readying themselves to return to their own time constructed them with the help of men like Cold. Though a cursory attempt had been made at discovering the identities of the rest of those involved in such efforts, nothing conclusive had ever come of it. Cold had made sure of that.

“Will they come to look for him – it? Can they?” he said.

“You had best hope not,” Cold said, tapping his brow. A chill coiled through Freeman. He had never even considered –

“Will this work?” he croaked, more to say something than because he expected an answer. Cold looked at him pityingly.

“It’s a little late to be asking that now, isn’t it?”

Freeman looked at Romero, at the thing in Romero and cleared his throat. He looked back at Cold. “Is it worth it, I mean?”

Cold cocked his head. For a moment, Freeman thought his grin faltered. Then the strap broke and Romero’s hand grabbed his and then Freeman was screaming.

A kaleidoscope of images crashed into his head all at once. Not of the great towers and vessels described in the diaries, but of basalt vaults and windowless edifices and of the long darkness. He saw the cone shaped beings firing strange weapons at him, hurting him, driving him back into a crackling cage and he knew they’d got it wrong, that their calculations had been off, that they’d gotten something else and that it was hungryohgoditwashungry-

T plus ten hours, four seconds

Operation Ranger proceeded as authorized and the world went white as Frenchman Flat was boiled down to glass, and Freeman’s facility with it. Trapped inside the Box, the thing that had been Freeman and Romero and a half dozen others screamed and screamed and screamed as atomic fire reduced it to carbonized dust.

Freeman’s hand had burst like an overripe fruit, wriggling and sloughing into Romero’s, two limbs becoming one. Two mouths opened and one groan had rattled forth and the air in the Box had shifted at the sound, coalescing and surging like an incipient hurricane. Romero had torn his other arm free and swung it into Freeman, the two men had splashed together like clay, their clothes tearing and flapping as they bled into one another and became something else. Something monstrous that spat alien curses and tried to re-build its body from the materials at hand.

Cold had left it to it. Preparations had already been made. The records could be prettied up later, to show a scheduled test, as opposed to a containment effort.

He watched the mushroom cloud vomit upwards into the sky, his smile bland and unwavering. Someone behind him coughed. Cold didn’t turn around. “Freeman’s plan has been judged a failure and his notes classified,” he said. “And the evidence has been tidied up.”

If Freeman had been there, he would have been surprised to see the quick study from his briefing. The man shifted from one foot to the next, clearly uncomfortable, though whether with the situation or simply in general was unclear. “The warning was appreciated,” the quick study said.

“Simply doing my part,” Cold said. Which was true, as far as it went…the visitors required help in returning to the past and hiding the traces of their visit, and Cold had provided them that help for centuries without measure. Who better to render aid to time travellers than immortals, after all?

“I didn’t know that the process would work on one of polypous race,” Cold said, rolling a finger towards the expanding cloud. “Quite a trick that, I must say. Peaslee’s texts implied –”

“Peaslee knew only what we told him.”

Cold chuckled. “He was something of a double agent, wasn’t he? Spilling your secrets, but only those you wanted them to know.”

“Much like you,” the quick study said.  Cold’s smile twitched.

“Yes. They could learn much from you…” Cold said.

“They have learned enough, despite our – your – best efforts,” the other man said. “If they discovered the secret…”

“Which they will, inevitably,” Cold said and laughed. The quick study swallowed.

“Yes, you are proof enough that they have the means and the tenacity.”  The quick study frowned. “They are dangerous. You are dangerous. You should be exterminated, like the star-headed cannibals and their servants.”

Cold turned. “Never doubt it, my friend. But now that they have seen what wolves await them on this path, they will choose another. Your great plan is safe, and humanity will remain trapped in its moment, for the moment. You are safe from them and them from you.”

“It is better that way.”

“Debatable, but pithy,” Cold said, his grin stretched tight. He looked back at the cloud and thought of the screaming thing and what had likely been its last moments and then of Freeman’s last question. He looked at his gloved hand, and the slight squirming of the things beneath the leather.  

Cold made a fist and murmured, “Things are learning to walk that ought to crawl.” Then his smile stretched to its full length. The quick study stepped back, looking nervous. Cold thought he had good reason to be.

“It’s not a matter of if, you see, but when,” Cold said. And he laughed.

In Closing

That’s it for this month. If you made it this far, thanks for giving it a read and possibly even subscribing. I hope you enjoyed this back-to-basics newsletter. Check back next time for more new releases (hopefully) and a new (old) monthly story.

But for now, to paraphrase the estimable Carnacki – out you go!

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A Night at Zermatt Station

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God’s Madman-Abraham Van Helsing

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The Mummy’s Hand (1940)

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Psychomanteum #17

Editorial

It was my birthday this month. I’m now closer to fifty than forty, and feeling the weight of every one of those years. Mostly because I’m trying to stay healthy after my health scare earlier in the year. My muscles ache from exercise, my stomach is always empty and I have to take a little pill every morning to keep my blood pressure from popping the top of my head off. It could be worse. I’ve lost some weight, put back on some muscle. I’m not svelte by any means, but my dad bod is shrinking steadily. I feel better than I have in years.

My attention span is returning to pre-Covid levels as well. I find myself chewing through novels and collections once again, reading with something like my old speed. I’m able to watch movies and television without my attention wandering all across creation. My brain is repairing itself, I suppose. Heaven help us all.

Even so, I’m still feeling like a cat in a room full of rocking chairs. Don’t know why. A cloud of anxiety has settled over me. I feel like something bad – worse than now – is on the horizon. I’ve started prepping again – jerry cans for water, tins of food, first aid supplies, medicine…toilet roll. Just in case. Maybe it’s nothing. Maybe I’m just paranoid. But maybe not.

My dad taught me the basics of prepping as a kid; what to store, what to eat, how to fix things and make use of things that can’t be fixed. I’ve taught myself other stuff since. I’ve been getting into gardening lately, and some of that bleeds into this. It feels good to plant things and see them grow. I’ve started thinking about growing my own potatoes. Maybe some peppers. Carrots. Beans.

Just in case.

Anyway, this is my recommendation for the podcast, How to Survive, by Brian Keene, Dacia Arnold and Jim Cobb. It’s not exactly soothing listening, but it takes the edge off my anxiety some. If you’re sharing my current gloom, it might help you as well.

Reading:

Hammerhead Ranch Motel by Tim Dorsey. Beasts of Burden Omnibus by Evan Dorkin et al. Knights of the Dinner Table, issue 318. Certain Prey by John Sandford.

Watching:

Senritsu Kaiki File Kowasugi! (2012). Prophecy (1979). Psychomania (1973). North of North, Season One. Newtopia, Season One. The Beast of Walton St. (2023).

Listening:

Old Gods of Appalachia, Season Five. GF Newman’s The Corrupted, Seasons One and Two. How to Survive 2025, Season One.

News

This month has been all ups and downs. I sold a few stories, and crossed another item off of my bucket list – more on that next year – but received a handful of rejections. Not unexpected ones, mind, but it still stings a bit. Sometimes you just have to accept that your writing just isn’t going to click with the editorial needs of a particular market(s) and move on.

I’m still plugging away at the book (which is now listed for preorder below), but I’ve also started a few new short stories, just to take the edge off. One of them is a new Vordenburg story, which means that I might just have begun work on a second collection of The Vordenburg Papers. But only time will tell. Anyway, have some links.

New Essay – Supernatural Sleuth: Anton Zarnak

I posted a new(ish) Nightmare Men essay on Lin Carter’s Anton Zarnak to the site this month. It originally appeared in 2011 or so at the Black Gate Magazine site, but I’ve tidied it up some and updated it. Subscribe and read it for free.

New Essay – The Mummy (1932)

I posted a new Silver Screams essay on the 1932 classic, The Mummy. Karloff at his finest, and much of the cast from Dracula, doing what they did in that film. Subscribe and read it for free.

New Novel – Return of the monster-Men

Last year, I was given the opportunity to write the novelisation of Mike Wolfer’s comic book miniseries, Return of the Monster-Men, and give it an ending worthy of both the work Wolfer had done, and Burroughs himself. My efforts are now up for preorder, if you’re interested. Hopefully I’ll get to write further adventures for Number 13 – or Otto, as he likes to be called – but only time (and sales) will tell. Preorder a copy today!

New Novel – Stand at Callenspire

And here’s the novel I’m working on at the moment. Stand at Callenspire is my first foray into Mantic’s Kings of War setting, and it’s a doozy: elves, halflings and seagoing Neriticans versus a mysterious new foe that threatens all of Mantica. If you enjoyed my Space Marine Conquests novel, Apocalypse, I think you’ll enjoy this one. It’s got a similar vibe to it. Preorder a copy today!

New Short Story – “The Adventure of the Dreaming Dragon”

The final MX Book of Sherlock Holmes Stories is now available, and it includes my story, “The Adventure of the Dreaming Dragon”. It finds Holmes and Watson once more aiding Pinkerton agent Leverton on a transatlantic case, involving a missing painting and attempted blackmail. Order a copy from the publisher, or the online venue of your choice.

New Short Story – “He in the Tree”

Red Cape Publishing’s new anthology, Tales of Folk Horror, is now available, and it includes a new Artemis Whitlock story. “He in The Tree” finds Artemis visiting an old friend in Hampshire, and becoming involved in a rite to an ancient god. Order a copy from the online retailer of your choice.

New Short Story – “Hearts of Ice”

I’ve posted a brand new Baron Vordenburg story to the site this month. “Hearts of Ice” finds the monster-hunter facing off with a cannibal ogre in the wilds of Canada. Subscribe and read it for free. And remember, the first twelve Vordenburg stories (plus a novella!) are now available in a nifty digital collection at my Ko-fi shop! Why not grab a copy?

Monthly Spotlight“Manglers Never Lose”

Of all the myriad properties of Games Workshop, Blood Bowl is the one I enjoy the most. It’s ridiculous, over-the-top, and utterly lacking in the grimdark seriousness of Warhammer 40K or the rest. Getting the chance to write a story for it was probably the best thing that ever happened to me while I was writing for Black Library. I got to do one more (a sequel to this one!) but that was it. Which is a shame, because I thought I did a pretty good job. Ah well. It’s no longer available on the Black Library site for whatever reason, but you can find cheap copies of Death on the Pitch, the anthology containing my two tales and a host of others if you look hard.

Monthly Story“Evil Fruit”

“Evil Fruit” was first published in 2011, I think, in the now long out-of-print Monkpunk anthology. It was the first outing of Bartolomeo Corsi, 12th century Florentine monk, former soldier, reluctant scholar and tormented devil-hunter. Observant Lovecraftians will note that Corsi is one of those wayward souls kidnapped through time by the Great Race in Lovecraft’s seminal “The Shadow Out of Time”. Corsi went on to star in two more outings – “The Waters So Dark” and “Canes Ad Inferius” – and he may well appear in his own novel next year, if the fates align. I enjoy writing Corsi; he’s a bit like Ellis Peters’ Brother Cadfael, by way of Solomon Kane. Enjoy!

Bartolomeo Corsi descended the rough-hewn, moss-encrusted stone steps into the catacombs beneath the abbey, a flickering torch in one hand, and a blade in the other. It was a plain, ugly thing, that blade. Crudely forged and cheaply made. But it was serviceable enough, even as its wielder was, and God yet had a use for them both. Or so Corsi hoped. He hated to think that God might have brought him back from the Pit simply to call him to Paradise. Still, if it was his time, then he would go in good grace, certain of his soul’s peace. Which was more than some could say.

Corsi descended the slimy steps carefully, and the heavy, wet air settled on him like a blanket. It chilled him, despite the thick wool of his cloak and robes. It wasn’t the cold of the storm which lashed the island above, or the coolness of the waters of the Grado Lagoon that surrounded said island, but rather a creeping damp, like that which might emanate from an old well or forgotten stones.

The air was thick with it as well as the smells of stagnation and worse things besides. The feathery bristles of the faintly phosphorescent patches of mold that clung to the stones around him stirred in an unpleasant fashion as he descended.

Strange sculptures of fantastic design crouched in shallow niches, adding to the eerie air of the place. How long such things had been there, Corsi couldn’t say, and didn’t wish to investigate. The nooks and crannies reeked as badly as the open air and he was glad of the cloth tied about his face.  “By their smell can men sometimes know that they are near,” he muttered. His words, quiet as they were, were swallowed by the oppressive atmosphere.

The abbey above him had been a fortress-keep once, built in centuries past by a family of fine pedigree and ferocious disposition named Veles. When the last of them had been on death’s doorstep, he had made a bequest of his family’s ancient hold, offering it to the church in return for forgiveness of his many and varied sins, and daily prayers for his blackened soul.  Such was not uncommon. But, in this case the church, Corsi thought, had gotten the worse of the deal. “A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit,” he murmured.

By the light of his torch he could see the contorted fungus shapes all about him, like sinners pent in Hell. The walls were alive with them. The mass of dripping mold was not one thing, but hundreds of crusted convolutions which resembled nothing so much as tormented human figures. He tried not to look at them too closely.  “Wherefore by their fruits shall ye know them,” he said, casting his words before him like stones.

The torch flickered in the clutches of a sudden draft, and the stones around him echoed with the dull pounding of the storm on the island above. The steps beneath his feet, smothered as they were by mold, had been carved centuries ago, before either Venetian, Florentine or Lombard had prowled the waters of the Adriatic. Those who knew about such things swore that the island had first been settled by the Romans, and that the roots of the keep-turned-abbey that now occupied it were built on the bones of some ancient shrine to the gods of antiquity.

Corsi thought there was some merit in the idea; when the tides receded and the waters of the lagoon above grew low, one could see what was left of what could only be an old Roman road, leading from Grado to the island. Granted, the water levels had changed some since the days of the Caesars, and now the only way to reach the island was by boat.

The brothers of the Order of Saint Benedict who made the abbey their home were probably glad enough for the latter. The world had been in upheaval since Baldwin had sat his fundament on the throne of Jerusalem. Wars in the west and the east, plague, kings losing their heads left and right. But here, such things seemed far away.

Then, there were worse things than wars and plague. His grip on his sword tightened, and he felt the old familiar fear stir in him, like a startled serpent. Hazy half-formed images, brief snatches of memories that were not his, or at least not his alone surfaced. He smelled the foetid stink of the great jungles that stretched across the horizon, and felt the strange warmth of the basalt towers. He saw again the horrid, lurching shapes of his captors. He heard again the voices of his fellow prisoners: the Frank, Montagny, the Aegyptian, Khephnes, the Saxons, Peaslee and Woodville, the Roman Blaesus. Men like himself, torn from their God-given flesh, and trapped in devilish shapes.

For five years, he had been Hell’s prisoner, imprisoned in a cage of unnatural flesh, in a body not his own. For five years, one of them–demon, fallen angel, something else–had occupied his shape. No one would tell him what it had done with his hands, or said with his mouth. But he knew. He dreamed of those dark, forgotten days, and wept upon awakening.

Corsi closed his eyes and whispered a silent prayer as he did every time the old memories threatened to overwhelm him. The images receded, back into the roots of his mind with all of the other bad memories, where he wished they would stay. They did not lack for company, for his had been a life of sin.

He had been a man of the world before he became a lamb of God, killing the enemies of Anjou and later, hunting the foes of the Florentine republic. He’d killed men in the Holy Land under the banners of Robert of Normandy, and hunted Syrian pirates in Byzantine waters. The sword he held had spilt the blood of Christian, pagan and Turcoman alike. But he’d seen the face of God in the fire of Jerusalem’s fall, and he’d traded his armor for a cassock and his boots for sandals, but God had seen fit to call him back to his original trade after his time in Hell.

The world was adrift in a sea of darkness, and Holy Mother Church had use for a man who had seen the torments of the Pit firsthand, and knew which bit of a sword went into an enemy’s belly. There were enemies abroad worse than any Mohammedan or heretic, and it was Corsi’s burden–his duty–to face them, wherever they might lair.

Corsi’s foot came down off of the last step onto a mass of fungus and something that might have been a whimper escaped from it, rippling up past him. He jerked his foot back and swept his torch across the floor.

The light caught on ridges that might have been terror-widened mouths and staring smoothness’ that might have been eyes or shoulders or heaving limbs. Corsi turned in a slow circle, the light of his torch dancing over the walls and floor to catch the shapes that seemed to swim upwards through the floor and along the walls, towards the ceiling in straining, bulbous rashes of unmoving mold. He did not wonder what they were running from. He suspected he knew the answer.

He had been sent to seek it out after all, and dispatch it as best he might, God willing. He recalled the face of Selvo, the abbot, as he’d spoken about the plague of creeping mold and rot that afflicted the abbey. It had begun in the balneary, the baths, spreading in the warmth and the wet, as such things do. When the stores in the refectory went bad, the brothers had thought nothing of it. Such things happen, after all, in places like this. But it had grown worse, day by day. The fungus crept into the dormitories, invading the brethren’s cells and the chapel. Outside, it was just as bad. The brothers had to put down what little livestock they had and the fruits of their gardens were rendered inedible.

It had taken years, growing slowly in strength. But then, that was ever the way of it, Corsi knew. His soul had not been wrenched from him all at once, but slowly pried free of its mortal flesh over the course of months. Evil grew in the dark and the quiet, and by the time men recognized it for what it was, it had grown strong indeed. “Their hand is at your throat, though you see it not,” he murmured. He couldn’t recall where he’d learned that particular line, from what book or scroll, but it seemed apt.

He pressed on through the catacombs, striding across flat, heavy foundation stones carpeted with bunches of mold and the humps of toadstools clustering between them. In the light of his torch, he saw that the walls around him bulged with mushrooms and furry streaks that blended in hideous harmony to give shape to still more faces and hands and other, less identifiable things. But all of it was covered in the yellow mold, which rustled and strained like a thing aware in the draft.

None of it was natural. Corsi was no herbalist, but he knew the slime of the Outer Dark when he trod on it. That much he’d learned in his time in the jungles of Hell. “Until out of corruption, horrid life springs,” he said.

His words were not swallowed this time, but echoed about him, louder than he’d intended. He’d come to a large, domed chamber, where ribs of wood and brick held up a roof of stone. It was the heart of the catacombs, where generations of the Veles family had been interred in the stone vaults that might once have played witness to the mysteries of Rome. Water dripped from somewhere, creating tiny rivers of running wetness which curled between the stones of the floor. The smell was stronger here, and it seemed to permeate everything.

He froze. A sound, deep and raspy, echoed through the cellar. It seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. Corsi crept through the brick and stone archways, moving swiftly, but carefully, not looking at mold which covered everything. Things moved in the darkness around him he thought, things which grunted and clawed at the stone softly as they watched him pass by. What they were, he couldn’t say. Rats perhaps, or something worse. “Things have learned to walk that ought to crawl,” he muttered. Evil bred evil, of one kind or another. And that evil was aware of him now, he thought, if it hadn’t been before. It was watching him, listening to him, stalking him without moving.

He did not know what it was, or what it might have been. How long had it lain in the dark, creeping forward to reclaim that which it had once owned? Who had it been, when it last stood in the light of day? He shook his head irritably.

Corsi had never been a man for questions. He was neither curious nor creative, and though he could read and write, his only pleasure was in scripture. He and the sword he held were of a kind, forged for a singular purpose. That was why he had been chosen, he thought, both by Hell and the church. He was not brave, for was a sword brave? He was but a tool in the hands of God. And tools felt no fear, and needed only a guiding hand to see that they accomplished their task. “Into thy hands I commend myself,” he said.

A noisome, humid draft swirled about him, and his torch guttered, nearly going out. He turned his body to protect it, and saw a gap in the wall before him. The stones looked as if they had been forced outward by the slow, persistent expansion of the foulness which billowed from it. Mold and fungus had broken the ancient seals and spread from there. Despite the damp and the effluvial growth which made the crumbled wall resemble nothing so much as gaping mouth of a leper, the air was cold. Colder here than anywhere else in the catacombs. His breath frosted the air, despite the cloth wrapped about his face.

The broken stones seemed to leer at him, and he could hear a sound emanating from within the hole. It was a soft, insistent sound, like moss being ripped from wood and the glow of his torch began to fade as if all of the air were being drawn towards the hole. In the growing darkness, he felt, rather than saw, something shift and move and begin to rise within it, like a parody of birth. What nightmare shape festered in that charnel womb, he could not say. He only knew that he could not allow it to be born unchallenged. That was why he had come, and why he had been brought alive from the jaws of Hell.

Corsi raised his blade, a prayer on his lips. “Negotium perambulans in tenebris,” he intoned, “I name thee the pestilence that walks in darkness, the evil fruit of a corrupt tree.” He extended his blade. “The soul of the devil-bought hastens not from its clay. Thus, you shall be cast into the fire.”

Something gurgled in the darkness. It was a mud in a bucket sound, deep and unpleasant. It was laughter, he thought, laughter from a thing which had not laughed in centuries. The thing began to move again, pushing itself up. He had the impression of spindle-thin arms, and a mouldering shroud and something that shined in the dark—an eye, perhaps or a bit of jewellery. Something, then, was left of the man it had been, once upon a time. Some stray scrap of mortality that might yet prove its undoing.

“Veles,” he spat. The thing stilled. “Veles. In whose name did you rule this island? In whose name do you seek to take it back from those whom your kin gifted it?” His words seemed to catch on the air, and were swallowed by the soft masses of mold. “Questions for scholars or alchemists, I think. I am but a humble monk. And I know only one way to give you absolution.”

He tossed aside his torch, as the flame weakened and turned blue. The thing began to pull itself towards the aperture and he stalked to meet it. “Your covenant with death shall be annulled. Your agreement with the realm of the dead shall not stand. And when the overwhelming scourge passes over, then you shall be trodden down by it. Come forth and receive God’s judgement, Veles, if that be your name. Come forth!”

The laughter, if that was what it was, ceased. A stench swept over him and enfolded him in its foul wings, choking him. It was the miasma of ages, the stink of sin steeped in its own foulness. It had waited so long, gathering its strength. God alone knew what it intended, should it free itself. Then, what was one more pestilence in a world rife with them? “Come forth,” he whispered. “Come forth, so that I might give you absolution, and make good the bequest.”

With a great ripping sound, the thing lunged, flowing towards Corsi like a geyser of foulness. He could not see it clearly in the darkness, and for that he was glad. His blade swept out, and he was nearly jarred from his feet as the blow connected. There was a wet shriek, like a sail tearing in a storm, and then he was shoved backwards across the floor. He lost his grip on his sword as his back connected painfully with the wall.

Corsi heard something heavy crashing around in the dark, and he thought of a serpent he’d beheaded as a boy, twisting and writhing in on itself for long agonizing moments before it finally fell still. The air was filled with a foul odor, and he groped blindly for his blade.

A keening whistle threatened his eardrums, and he realized that the sound was coming from the fungal growths all about him. Each and every wet clump had cracked wide, and the sound speared forth from them. He thought that there might have been words there, curses and pleas, but he ignored them. The words of the dead were not meant for the living.

His clawing fingers found the pommel of his sword and he snatched it up as he lurched to his feet. Sparks were drawn from the stone as the sword scraped across it and he swung it up over his head and hurled himself at the writhing shadowy mass.

It struck out at him, and he felt something flabby crash against him. Sharp things tore at his flesh, and he felt the mass lurch into him like a wounded beast. Two burning embers which might have been eyes glared at him as he slashed out with his blade. The dark shape writhed and seemed to collapse in on itself.

He brought his sword down, parting the darkness. The edge of his sword struck stone and shivered. His arms were covered in something wet and tarry, and his face and chest as well. He staggered back to his fallen torch. Its flame, once close to being extinguished, had grown in strength, and had set alight the moss upon which it fallen, as if the latter had suddenly become exceedingly dry. He snatched the torch up. “Every tree that bringeth forth not good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire,” he croaked and stabbed the torch down into the deflating bulk of the thing he’d felled. He didn’t know whether he’d killed it, whether it even could be killed, but he knew somehow that what steel couldn’t accomplish, fire would.

He backed away. The flames caught and fed hungrily on the indistinct bulk. Soon, they lapped at the walls and crawled across the floor. By their light, he found his way back to the steps. Corsi did not look back as he began to climb back up into the clean air and light of God’s grace.

In Closing

That’s it for this month. If you made it this far, thanks for giving it a read and possibly even subscribing. I hope you enjoyed this back-to-basics newsletter. Check back next time for more new releases (hopefully) and a new (old) monthly story.

But for now, to paraphrase the estimable Carnacki – out you go!

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Hearts of Ice

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Supernatural Sleuth-Anton Zarnak

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