Thursday! 2-49: Revealing Yo--No. Wait. Change All That.
V2, I49
Before I do anything else, this week, I want to thank those who chimed in on last week’s story. Your response was unequivocal and so I shall do my very best to tell you more stories of Red and Hosanna (and possibly Royce, who I thought was a side-character in a single story, but who may end up as more). Thank you!
I’m happy that you liked the story. I liked writing it and I had fun sitting down with it again. I’m also glad you want me to spend more time in that world, about which I knew very little when I wrote the first story. But…well, may I tell you? Sit for a spell. You might like this.
I’m a fan of “monster hunter” stories in which good guys keep the world, or some small part of it, safe from the wicked things in the shadows and the truly evil things that walk boldly in the daylight. My favorite in that particular genre are the Monster Hunters International series by Larry Correia, the Carnacki, the Ghost Finder stories by William Hope Hodgson1, and the Kolchak: the Night Stalker TV series from the 70s2. Monster hunter stories are a staple of the genre going all the way back to Dracula3. I’m also a fan of Old America stories — urban legends, cryptic stories, folk tales and legends. You know the sort of stuff I mean: Mothman, various Sasquatch-type creatures, the Moll Dyer legends. The very best stuff comes from the oldest parts of the country and the parts that don’t get a lot of people in and out to change them. H.P. Lovecraft knew that, I think, which is why so many of his stories take place well away from towns and cities. It is why he The Shadow Over Innsmouth, one of my favorite stories, in a town that most people had all but forgotten. Legends that stay in one place take on a solidity that you feel from the very moment you hear them.
That is the world of Red and Hosanna — the places well off the interstate, the woods and swamps beyond the towns where people don’t much go anymore, down the winding roads that get smaller and closer the longer you drive. I don’t know exactly who they are nor exactly what they’ll find, but I have a very strong “feel” for their adventures and you get a taste of that, I hope, in last week’s story.
The next few paragraphs were supposed to contain my thoughts on sharing our art and how difficult, yet how necessary it is to us and to the people with whom we share. God, though, had quite a different idea. Last night4, not terribly long after my parents left our place and headed home, we got a call from my sister on my Mom’s phone. They had gotten home safely, but my Mom tripped over a pesky tree root in the front yard and took a nose dive. Literally. She whacked her nose and forehead on the ground and needed someone to take her to the emergency room. My Dad, because of some temporary health issues, wasn’t good to drive, so my wife and I headed over there just after 1:30 in the morning.
Mom is okay, though her nose is a little purply, she’s sore, and has a headache. Thank God she didn’t break her nose. Her head is fine, or at least as fine at the head of someone who had to put up with me as a son can be. Tuesday, though, was shot. By the time we picked up breakfast for the three of us, got her safely home and inside, and got ourselves home and settled, it was 10 A.M. We grabbed a few hours of sleep and got back up because Candi5 still had to work this evening. I had planned to write those aforementioned stirring paragraphs during my lunch break then make them sharp and wonderful Tuesday evening — right now.
Except I don’t have those hours anymore. I needed them for sleep. And I definitely don’t have the brainpower I need to be clever and insightful as I want to be. I have this hour and this brain power and my dogged desire to give you something interesting and enjoyable. I hope.
But that’s life, isn’t it? We make plans and then stuff happens. We want to write one thing and have to change course. We set out a timeline for project and have to change it because something else came up that required our time and attention. We don’t stop, though. We don’t quit because we are artists and making art is our heart and soul. If we get discouraged, we’re just going to be miserable, so we adapt. We overcome6. We find some encouragement in our mixed-up plans and we keep on going.
At least that’s what I did here this evening. Next time, it’s your turn!
One last note. I’m eager to welcome a couple new patrons to my small but wonderful group of folks who put a couple few bucks behind my art each month. One of them could be you. In fact, I’d go so far as to say you should be one of them. Take a look and, if you can swing it, swing it please!
[You can jump in with a little or a lot — $2, $5, or $20 a month. The process is easy and painless and you’d be helping me move a bit closer to full-time creative work!]
What I Wrote this Week
You can read these in one collection here or take them in one at a time in audiobook form, performed by the very excellent team at HorrorBabble. I highly recommend the latter.
Want a truly odd experience? Watch a couple episodes of Kolchak, then watch A Christmas Story. It’s hard not to imagine Ralphie’s Dad as a hardened journalist who knows way too much about the paranormal. His epic battles with the furnace take on a much more sinister tone…
Yes, the Count was the center of the action but van Helsing was, for my money, the most dynamic character of the whole tale.
Monday evening. Because I write Thursday! on Tuesday so I can send it out Wednesday. Like you do.
Candi is my wife, in case you hadn’t been taking notes. Why haven’t you been taking notes??
We swipe something from a Clint Eastwood movie.