Clyde is an old man in San Francisco easily mistaken for just another grandfatherly retiree. In reality, he is a vampire from the Old World who has spent his life as a monster of the dark following the rules of vampirism with which we are all quite familiar. Only upon meeting a female vampire who has never drank blood named Magreb does he come to realize all that mythic stuff is made-up stuff. He learns that he doesn’t have to sleep in a coffin, avoid the sun or drink blood. Magreb becomes his wife and also teaches him the secret to survival of sucking on the lemons in the grove as a replacement for sucking blood.
Reeling for the Empire
Kitsune is one of several young Japanese women living together in a constricted room furnished with a window, but situated so high that it offers no affordable view. They call the place the Nowhere Mill and have become a family of sorts dependent upon one another as a result of falling for a trafficking scam which ultimately has them literally turned into silkworms after being drugged with a special tea. The worker revolt which follows transforms the tale into a metaphorical reimagining of a similar (minus the horror element) story which took place under the real-life Japanese historical era known as the Meiju Empire.
The Seagull Army Descends on Strong Beach, 1979
The title here is ironically dramatic in its vivid imagery of something quite unusual and perhaps signaling the arrival of something apocalyptic. In reality, the story is highly symbolic in its telling of a simple coming-of-age story about a young teen’s first serious bout with unrequited passion, jealousy and envy of friends, an intensive awareness of all things related to self-interest, and, almost above all else, the fear of looking too weird and out of place.
Proving Up
This story is narrated by 11-year-old Miles Zegner and is another deeply symbolic tale combining elements of history and horror. The plot revolves around “the Window” which must benefit all the homesteaders across a mass of Nebraska prairie. Miles is charged with the important job of taking the Window to the home of each of these neighbors to be used during home inspection so that the inspector will believe each home is equipped with the necessary décor. The trek of Miles from neighbor to neighbor makes up the build of the dramatic element of the story and is compromised by the strange and terrifying unexplained figure of willowy man whose gaunt face is entirely black. The ending is ambiguous and leaves the reader to decide whether the consequences were entirely literal or a combination of literal and symbol.
The Barn at the End of Our Term
The story commences with Rutherford B. Hayes—beneficiary of one the most controversial and contested Presidential elections of the 19th century—having been turned into a horse. Soon enough the reader learns that James Garfield, John Adams and James Buchanan have also become transmogrified into equine creatures. All of the horses except Hayes spend the story pursuing their common lust for the same thing they lusted after in human form: power. Hayes, however, spends his time as a horse searching for his wife. Hayes essentially fell backwards into the Presidency and proceeded to spend his four years in office becoming another in the long line of 19th century Chief Executives whom nobody much remembers. The others attained the Presidency through the normal means and though many of them were less than memorable, the difference lies in the pursuit of power. A pursuit which looks all the more ridiculous from the perspective a horse.
Dougbert Shackleton’s Rules for Antarctic Tailgating
As the title strongly suggests, this is less a traditional short story than an ironic listing of the rules for tailgating way, way down south. The sports of the Antarctic are not football or even sledding, but watching human interference into the national progression of evolution take its toll on the species fighting to death to not become the next species which goes extinct.
The New Veterans
Beverly has been a giving massages for half of her forty-years on earth. This particular client is Sgt. Derek Ziegler, a veteran of the Iraq war sporting an intricate and vividly colored tattoo that is impressive, to be sure, but almost impossible to figure out. Full enjoyment and appreciation of the story is dependent upon taking the passenger seat alongside Beverly as she slowly figures out what that tattoo is supposed to represent, why it is behaving strangely beneath her expert fingers and, most importantly, why the act of using those fingers to knead another person’s flesh and muscle has become known not simply as giving a massage, but providing therapy.
The Graveless Dolls of Eric Mutis
Larry Rubio narrates the strange and unnerving tale of how he and his friends discovered a scarecrow tied to a tree that instantly freaks them out even more than a scarecrow tied to a tree would usually freak out some kids. The scarecrow bears a more than passing similarity to Eric Mutis, an unfortunate neighborhood associated of Larry and his friends who just so happened was the recipient of brutal bullying. Little by little, piece by piece, parts of the Scarecrow go missing. Larry gets blamed by the others, but he isn’t the culprit. After relating a story about momentary bonding with Eric and the longer-lasting consequences of betraying that bonding, Larry sets to trying to make up for past actions he now comes to regret too deeply.
