Shock Totem 8: Curious Tales of the Macabre and Twisted

by Shock Totem

  I don’t say anything to them. I look past them at the stone cross, which sits in the heather as squat and ugly as it ever was. The blood from my hand has washed away overnight. I wanted to be sure of that, though for a moment I don’t know why.

  “You bastard,” says one of them, an officer. “What the hell were you on?”

  I’m hauled up and cuffed, knocked about a bit. The usual. It wakes me up.

  “You messed up, mate,” the officer says. “You left witnesses.”

  I must look blank, because he laughs in a way I don’t like. I remember shooting and a road, and the Big Man dead in it, but it doesn’t feel important.

  “You’re still high, aren’t you?” he says. “You must have been like a bloody kite when you crashed out up here. Might have got clear if you’d kept going.”

  He pushes me, not too hard. Jamie’s dead, I remember. I should feel sad about that, sometime.

  “Come on,” he says. “Let’s move.”

  We walk single file, back towards the road and their vehicles. The torn pocket of my jeans is flapping against my leg. As we pass the cross, I look at it and I see the little circular hollows carved into it, like eyes in a face. There’s a little pile of coins stacked in one of them, the lowest, between the others, a great gaping mouth in the ugly misshapen face. There’s just enough money there for a couple of cigarettes. Old fashioned, yes, but then she was more than old fashioned; she was old, as old as that stone and as set in the land. This is her place.

  They will hang me for what I have done.

  I hope they do it a long way from here.

  Harry Baker grew up in North Yorkshire and Peterborough, and is currently studying at the London Film School. This is his first published story.

  UNTIL I’M DEAD

  A Conversation with Adam Cesare

  by K. Allen Wood

  In my mind, two distinct things stand out when I think of Adam Cesare.

  Adam was one of the first to review our debut issue. Hellfire Right Out of the Gate was the review title. In simpler words: he liked it. We met in person shortly thereafter at Rock and Shock, a horror-meets-music convention held annually in Worcester, Massachusetts. What I remember most about that day is how he seemed genuinely excited to meet me, Shock Totem’s publisher and editor. Maybe my ego interpreted things incorrectly, but all I know is that that was the first time I felt like we were truly doing something special, maybe even something great. Today I consider Adam a friend, but he was just a fan then, someone who was enthusiastic about what we were doing, and that meant a lot.

  That was five years ago, and now we’ve come full circle, to where I am his fan.

  In the last few years, Adam has gone from aspiring author to inspiring author. Truly. I’ve had the pleasure of watching him progress from a writer with potential to one who wields words with great strength and power. Whether it’s Adam Cesare or Mercedes M. Yardley or Lee Thompson, being present to witness that kind of metamorphosis—a spark become a flame become a raging firestorm—has been one of the greatest rewards of publishing Shock Totem.

  And so it is my pleasure to present to you this conversation with the man himself. Hail, Cesare!

  • • •

  KW: Adam, welcome. Thanks for taking the time to answer a few questions.

  AC: Thanks for having me. Long time listener, first time caller.

  KW: I recently finished your collection with Matt Serafini, All-Night Terror, and your latest release, The First One You Expect. I’m also in the middle of The Summer Job (yeah, I know; I read too many books at once). What is immediately clear, is how far you’ve come since Tribesmen, how much stronger your prose is. How happy are you with your progress and success thus far?

  AC: I’m reading through like five books now myself between paperbacks and pre-reading and my kindle, so I can empathize.

  Yeah, I do think I’ve gotten better and I’m very happy with that. Happy but never fully satisfied, right? It’s like every page makes you stronger, pushes you along but you don’t want to repeat yourself so you get complacent. The goal is to keep that trajectory going for a whole bunch of decades, until I’m dead.

  KW: What’s your process like? Do you start with an idea and just roll with it, let the story unravel organically; or do you outline?

  AC: Most of the publishers I work with have required synopses that take the story from beginning to end and at first I really hated that.

  From what I see on Facebook, etc. I think it’s like the ‘cool’ thing to do, to hate that The Man is forcing you to work from a synopsis, but if you want to write for these places you have to learn to enjoy the process and I definitely have.

  Only Tribesmen and Video Night were written without a synopsis, which offered all the freedom in the world but also led to moments (especially on Video Night) where I had to backtrack and tangle with some real mechanical problems with the narrative. If you go into a book with a malleable but still fully-functioning outline, you don’t run into those problems and you can focus on the writing itself.

  For The Summer Job I wrote a fairly extensive, high-detail outline and I think it allowed me to write a richer, more complicated book than I would have been able to do without one. Not to give anything away, but it’s a book where a lot of the tension comes from dramatic irony, the reader keeping tabs on what characters know what, but still never having the full picture until the very end. That’s not to say that every little thing was planned in advance (the whole third act is different than the outline, and way better, I think), but it’s nice to have a provisional blueprint.

  I’m writing another complicated thing right now and if the publisher hadn’t insisted on an outline I would have clawed my eyes out by now.

  KW: So you’re able to be objective enough to know when the outline isn’t working and just kind of toss it and jam?

  AC: With me it’s never so much a case of not working as it is all the little deviations I make from the outline add up to the story moving in a new direction. That’s why it usually happens late in a project. But yeah, if I’m in a corner I can jam.

  KW: One surprising thing about your writing, given how young you are, is that it’s a very classic style of storytelling, deeply rooted in the 70s and 80s. In the hands of a lesser writer this would come off as pastiche, but your work reads exceedingly genuine, even more authentic than the work of many who directly experienced those eras. Besides an obvious love and appreciation of the time period, particularly in the creative realms, how are you able to so convincingly fool us all?

  AC: Thank you.

  Well, I used to be big into doing period pieces. Tribesmen takes place in the early 1980s, when films were still very much products of the seventies and Video Night being late-eighties, anticipating the nineties. So when I was doing those my philosophy was think like the characters, not like someone who was writing patter for one of those VH1 I Love the 80s shows.

  If I referenced something (which I do sparingly in Tribesmen, given the characters and setting), I didn’t want it to read like name-dropping, just a natural expression of that character’s interests and goals at that point in the story. I think these cultural nods might read a little more broadly in Video Night, not only because it’s the first thing I wrote, but because those characters are so invested in the media they consume.

  Because my first two books employed that trick, afterwards I wanted to do some stories that took place in present day. The funny thing is I guess I can’t get away from those themes, nostalgia-addled characters, because the protagonist in The Summer Job is informed/haunted by her high school days, the struggles she faces trying to reinvent herself for college and then beyond that, once she graduates. Zero Lives Remaining also takes place in 2014, but it’s set in a video arcade, something we don’t have many of these days. The protagonist there is obsessed with games that are a decade-plus older than she is.

  None of these characters are much like me, so to “fool” people I try that trick that magicians employ: m
ost illusions only look good if your audience is standing at a really specific angle to you. I try to find tiny details that I may not have firsthand experience with, but are specific enough (and researched well enough) to read as true, when placed within the context of my “act.”

  KW: You’re a student of film and have a true love for cinema, which is quite evident in your work. In the past, you’ve worried about being pigeonholed as a “cinematic” writer. Why is that? And are you ready to accept that maybe it’s just part of your writer DNA?

  AC: I think I’ve worried more about being the guy who writes about movies, not maybe so much having a “cinematic” style. People say that of me and I get where they’re coming from, a bit, but I’m kind of myopic when it comes to my own style and can’t judge it. Maybe “cinematic” is just a nice way of saying I write too literally, although I hope not.

  I admire the way people like Laird Barron write, him and the other more “classical” writers of weird fiction, and I’ve experimented trying to ape stuff like that, but I like writing like me, what comes naturally. As long as, like we said in the beginning of this interview, I can keep sharpening that sword, doing it better with each book.

  I returned to the subject of horror cinema recently with The First One You Expect, which is a noir, a crime book set in the world of DIY horror movies. That one is tonally different than my other film-based fiction, WAY darker. Film is a big subject and I really don’t think I’ll be running out of aspects of it to talk about anytime soon, I’ll write about it when I think of the projects and sometimes I won’t. I like mixing it up.

  KW: Sure, you can’t write about movies or movie culture all the time, but surely you can write in a style tailor-made for movies. If that makes sense. And that doesn’t suggest a simpler, more literal style, lacking depth. Stephen King, I think, writes from that “cinematic” base.

  AC: Probably has to do with the way I think, maybe how deep down cinematic language has sunken into my brain. I’m a big reader, I’m very proud of that. I try to read as widely as possible, inside and outside the genre, highbrow and lowbrow, but still movies are my first love, so that informs not only the way I write, but the way I think.

  I will say: If I write for movies, then where are all my options? Please make all checks payable to cash.

  KW: Patience, young grasshopper!

  You’re a recent transplant to Philadelphia via Boston via New York. Over the years I’ve noticed a striking number of people—authors, artists, filmmakers, actors—in the horror field hail from Pennsylvania. How different from Boston and New York is the Philly scene?

  AC: I was skeptical at first, I really love Boston, but Philly is great. I hang out with a few people who are into horror, there’s a great community for both cinema and fiction. Really cool repertory shows, lots of used bookstores (though people tell me there used to be more). There’s also a really cool convention a quick bus ride away in Jersey: Monster Mania, it happens twice a year, Shock Totem should come down for one.

  KW: I remember when I first joined the Air Force and learned I was being stationed in Little Rock, Arkansas, I was convinced the scene was going to be nonexistent or close to it. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that it was not only massive but thriving. From musicians to actors to writers to artists of all mediums. This scenario repeated itself as I traveled the globe.

  AC: Just goes to show there are awesome people everywhere. It’s part of why I like going to conventions, you hear lots of different accents, but they’re all talking about their love of similar things.

  KW: You self-published your digital collection Bone Meal Broth, but you’re primarily publishing with a variety of small press publishers. While you’re undoubtedly a rising star within the small press, have you begun setting your sights higher?

  AC: Yeah, self-publishing is an amazing tool for people who can do it right. Bone Meal was an experiment in that, a cheap sample for people who weren’t sure whether they wanted to pick up my traditionally published material. Most of the stories in there were published under another name in paying markets, so once I had the rights back I figured what the hell.

  I just don’t have the level of hustle that successful self-published authors have. I don’t “cast a wide enough net” with my “online presence” in order to “further my brand.”

  KW: Self-promotion is an art unto itself. Most people come off as obnoxious spammers, while others do great with the social interaction and building a following but fail to engage those people beyond mutual disingenuous ego stroking. In both scenarios you have people who simply don’t care about your work, the latter group just pretends to. Few people are able to build a large, genuine following that truly cares about their work.

  AC: It’s so hard. We all have to do it, and when I do I feel like I’m inflicting my garbage on people. And I end up feeling especially bad about it if I have nothing of value to say beyond “Buy my book!” I still do it, but I try to show some restraint.

  Maybe that’s the key, though, if you don’t have Jiminy Cricket on your shoulder saying “I don’t know champ, maybe you shouldn’t invite them to ‘like’ your author page ten minutes after they accepted your request and have no clue who you are” you’re liable to do it.

  KW: What is your five- or ten-year plan?

  AC: Five-year plan? Ten? Jeez, that’s a lot of pressure. Yeah, I have my eyes on the prize and would love to get in with one of the big New York publishers, but I’m quite happy with the work I’m doing now and what I’ve got coming out with small/medium sized presses. In my short time publishing I’ve gotten to work with some of my heroes and I would like to keep doing that.

  But if we’re talking ultimate dream job stuff that is not the obvious work with one of the “Big Five” publishers? I’d love to write comics. I experimented with the format with my friend, artist Nick Lopergalo, and I think the results were awesome, a little twenty page women-in-prison-with-monsters one-shot called The New Fish.

  KW: Is The New Fish something destined to remain in archives or will it be available at some point?

  AC: It’s something we’re going to show around, but if nobody takes it, we’ll still find a way for people to see it. When I’m proud of something, it’s meant for public consumption.

  Is Shock Totem interested?

  KW: Well, Shock Totem Comics does have a nice ring to it.

  This spring we’re releasing your novella Zero Lives Remaining—which is brilliant, of course—but besides that, what else do you have planned over the coming months and years?

  I’ve had the good fortune of being able to collaborate with some writers I really respect. Cameron Pierce, Shane McKenzie, and I wrote a book called Leprechaun in the Hood: The Musical: The Novel. That was Cameron’s idea, and it’s as crazy and funny as the title suggests. We’re looking to place that somewhere cool.

  After that Shane invited me to work with him, Kristopher Rufty and David Bernstein on a book called Jackpot, which is about a serial killer who wins the lottery. That will be coming out soon in limited hardcover along with more affordable editions.

  In November my next novel with Samhain should be dropping, that one’s called Exponential and is a giant monster story, but done in a new way, I think.

  And right now I’m working on my biggest book yet, something really special.

  KW: Well, my friend, I’ll let you get back to it, then. It goes without saying that I’m looking forward to whatever you have a hand in writing. Thanks again, bud!

  AC: Thank you, Ken. I look forward to this issue, as I do all of them.

  2013 SHOCK TOTEM FLASH FICTION CONTEST WINNER

  STABAT MATER

  by Michael Wehunt

  Nolan found his wife crouched under the back deck, her swollen belly pressed against the soft dead leaves. He started to squat next to her but the sound of liquid pattering against the ground stopped him. For a frantic moment he thought her water had broken.

  The smell hit him then, a heady sourness. Betwe
en Lily’s bare feet came a thin creek of urine, trickling over her toes. She lowered her arms and he saw bits of leaves on her skin. They moved down toward her elbows. Not leaves but wasps, a dozen or so exploring her.

  “Lily?” Nolan tried to reach out but couldn’t. Panic surged over him, roaring in his ears vast and empty as the inside of a seashell. He was allergic to wasps and bees and all their kin. His EpiPen was in the upstairs bathroom but it was the phobia, its blind terror, that made him stagger back from her.

  She shook her arms and the wasps lifted and vanished under the floor of the deck. Then she sidled out into the yard and stood, half-naked, rotted leaves clinging to the underside of her belly. She was due any day now. Their first child, at last, the name Elaine and her grandmother’s antique crib waiting for her.

  He snatched Lily’s arms and searched for any lingering wasps. “You scared me,” he said. His fingers came away grainy and sticky. “Lil, did you put sugar on your skin?”