November 10, 2024 • 25 mins
Book Club Rerun from the ol' ICHH archive - now with Book Club wrapping!
Margaret Killjoy joins us to read a special spooky week ghost story about the 2nd American Civil War.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Al Zone Media.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Book Club book Club book Club book Club. Hello and
welcome to the Coolzone Media book Club rerun edition. It's
the Cool Zone Media book Club, the only book club.
You don't have to do the reading because I, Margaret
Kiljoy do it for you. And it's a rerun episode
(00:29):
because I'm on the road and terrible things are happening.
Not on the road specifically, but I'm on tour, and
also an election went badly, and so I didn't record
a new episode. But I thought to myself, you know
what episode has been a while since people heard, and
actually it predates Coolzone Media book Club. It's part of
(00:49):
the precursor to Coolzone Media book Club. When I would
just come on and read stories on it could happen here. Well,
I thought I would read a story called the Northern Host,
which is actually most people call it my no Nazis
in Valhalla story. And that's fine because for some weird reason,
a lot of people are thinking about what the civil
(01:10):
conflict in the United States might look like, and so
what a good time to tell you a story about
the Battle of Asheville as fought by some ghosts. Here's
the story. Well, here's me introducing the story again because
I don't know what's about to happen. I'm just this
is the introduction to a rerun episode. Here it goes, It's.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
All right, I did it, Sophy, I'm done for the day, Okay,
taking the rest off by It's okay.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
We have a cooler replacement for you today. Anyways, we
sure do.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
Uh So, you know, normally this is a show about collapse,
all that good stuff, YadA, YadA YadA, but fuck it,
it's Halloween week. So we're we're we're we're we're making
sure all of our stuff has a little bit of
an extra spooky twist. It's like when you make a
martini and you decide to actually put vermouth inside it,
as opposed to just kind of waving it nearby. That's
what we're doing this week, with spookiness being the vermouth
(02:20):
and mixing up our martini. Today is Margaret Kiljoy.
Speaker 4 (02:25):
Margaret Hello, Hello, I'm a famous mixologist, so literally this
will be very good.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
Now, Margaret, Today, for this very special episode of it
could happen here on Spooky Week. You have written us, well,
you've written a short story, and you're going to read
it and and and we're all gonna enjoy it? Is
that is that accurate?
Speaker 4 (02:47):
I hope at least I can. I can testify to
the first parts, and I hope for the last part.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
Excellent. All right, well with without further ado or with
minimal further ado. Let's uh, let's let's let's you know,
with the stuff, with the stuff, Margaret with the stuff.
Speaker 4 (03:04):
Well, and this is great because this is actually a
short story that you start reading of.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
Oh shit, yeah, where's that link? You tasted it to me,
but I don't have my phone on me.
Speaker 4 (03:13):
Okay, let me put it in the chat here.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Based impressive, to say the least.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
Based in fiction, pilled. Okay, I start reading the italics.
Speaker 4 (03:26):
Yeah, it's the first couple paragraphs of introduction, and then
you're interviewing me.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
All right, motherfuckers, let's get it started. The Northern Host
for all it's lingering horror and misery. The wake of
a war is rich terragn for a folklorist like myself.
(03:53):
More people report more supernatural experiences during times of war
than times of peace. Some of my peers have argued
the stress and shock of battle leaves our brains more
susceptible to mass illusion. Others claim that the veil between
worlds remains thin when so many are passing from life
to death. The Second American Civil War has been no exception.
(04:14):
Most famously, of course, soldiers from each of the three
armies present at the fifteen day Siege of Saint Louis
reported a wailing man who walked among the wounded, healing
some and ending the lives of others. On the Cascadian Front,
rebel forces spoke of black bears, who in effect stood
sentry for their guerrilla positions. During the White Army's occupation
of Washington, d C. Civilians and soldiers alike reported apparitions
(04:39):
pouring out from the Pentagon Crater every new moon. Of
all the various myths and legends to spring up in
the wake of the recent conflict, however, I find myself
most strongly drawn to the stories of the Northern host.
Never have I heard a myth recounted in such detail
by such a wide variety of people. My favorite telling
comes from Private Sarah Dollar in the Battle of Asheville.
(05:01):
This interview was recorded in the spring of twenty thirty
five and lightly edited for clarity with permission of the subject.
Note that the subject refers to the White Army by
pejoratives throughout these have been left intact for the historical record.
Could you introduce yourself and tell me what you saw.
Speaker 4 (05:20):
Yeah, my name is Sarah Daher. I'm thirty one years old.
I live in Ashville, in the Appalachian region of the
United States of America, on stolen Cherokee Land. My US
military rank was private. They made us all privates when
they incorporated the Irregulars into the army, but I only
served in the Union to fight the White Army a
year later. I'm one of those crazy radicals who doesn't
think the reconfiguration goes far enough. I'd never fired a
(05:43):
gun in my life before the Irregulars, and I hope
I never fire another one again. By temperament, I'm neither
a lover nor a fighter. I'm just your average trans
girl who likes Kats and hates Nazis. I fought in
three engagements in Weaverville, Leicester, and Asheville. I think I
killed two.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
One of them.
Speaker 4 (06:01):
I know I killed him. I saw him bleed out
and I saw him taken away in a black bag.
The other person was a man I shot in the
thigh during the Battle of Ashville. I didn't know you
could die from a bullet in the thigh, But I've
spent a lot of time looking at casualty records, and
someone who fit that man's general description died in that
battle from a bullet to the thigh.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Does that bother you? Yes?
Speaker 4 (06:24):
No, I don't know. I don't lose sleep over it,
but I think about it a lot. I look at
the docks on both of them. The first guy was
a true believer, a real blood and soil type. It
doesn't bother me that I mingled those two things for him.
The second man, though, I'm not so sure, he signed
up because his son signed up. I don't have any
kids myself, but I could see myself doing that. His
(06:46):
son survived the war.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
Have you been in contact with his son?
Speaker 4 (06:51):
No? Fuck that guy. That kid's a fucking Nazi, and
I don't know how he talked his way out of
the tribunals.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
Can you tell me what you saw at the Battle
of Asheville.
Speaker 4 (07:00):
This was during the Fascist Spring Offensive last year. You
know Hitler's birthday, April twentieth. By that point, the White
Army was pretty much done, but they weren't about to
go down without doing some major symbolic damage. So there
were about forty of us, all irregulars, with our own commanders,
no army oversight. Morale was down. We felt pretty abandoned,
common sentiment in the South. I was on the street
(07:22):
out in front of the library, walking rounds. Downtown was
half rubble at that point. Only the library was standing,
because symbols matter and all that bullshit, So that's where
we were making a stand. Neither side had artillery. Really,
by that point, the brass had just commandeered even our
RPGs for the quote real fight. Air support wasn't coming,
not for them and not for us. Really, the Battle
(07:45):
of Asheville was like nothing to the rest of the world,
and we knew it. So I was doing the rounds
thinking about my shit luck, thinking maybe I was going
to die, and how so many people had died, and
what's another dead girl to add to the pile. I
was thinking about how at least this dead girls going
to die surrounded by or in defense of books. Then
I heard dogs from around the side of the building.
(08:07):
One barked loud and near, the other sort of distant
and echoey. I went to check it out, turned the
corner and there was this naked guy. He was pale
as hell, tall, tattooed and scarred, and like I said,
he was naked as the sun. I stared at him,
he stared at me. I got so distracted trying to
figure him out that it took me a moment to
realize there were nine others behind him, or maybe they
(08:29):
weren't there at first, I don't know. Most of them
were men, mostly of the tall Norse looking variety, but
there was a Middle Eastern man and three women, including
one who by my read was Latin X No dogs
anywhere that I could see. The man closest to me
he asked me something in a language I didn't know.
I just kind of stared. He asked me another question
(08:50):
in another language. What I asked?
Speaker 3 (08:52):
Who are you?
Speaker 4 (08:55):
Who are we fighting? He asked? His accent was thick,
and I couldn't place it for the life of me.
I mean, I know now, but I'm sure shit didn't
know it then we I asked what I was due
back out front, because I was a century doing the
rounds and this sure needed reporting. What the hell was
I going to tell people? Who are we fighting? Where
are we You're in Asheville? Who are you ah the
(09:18):
American conflict, the man said behind him, others nodded. Their
movements were sloppy, dream like they were drunk. I later
realized one of them had dried blood running down from
her lip onto her not insubstantial belly. You're fighting the nationalists,
the first one said, We're here to help you. Who
are you, I asked this third time he actually answered,
(09:40):
my name is Bellgear.
Speaker 5 (09:42):
We are the dead.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
We are the ainhear from Valhalla. Every day we are
sent to a battle to fight, and we die. The
others behind him nodded, definitely drunk. Now, I know there
were good folks on our side who were into European paganism,
but you have to understand that a lot more of
the fashion were into that shit than anybody else. If
they hadn't been naked and drunk, I might have mistaken
(10:05):
them for the enemy and shot them. Valhalla, I said,
reciting the tiny bit. I knew that's where vikings go
if they die in battle, feast every day and fight
every night in Odin's Hall until the end of the world,
where you like also fight and die. But uh wolf
feeds the sun or something close enough, Belgar said. I mean,
(10:26):
Odin only gets half the battle dead, and Viking isn't
a good name for us. But sure, and you're here
because we are to take arms alongside you, fight your
enemies and die today. Am I going to die today?
Only the seers and the gods know that. I'd been
calling myself a witch half my life, but honestly that
(10:46):
was mostly because I like tarot and astrology and panagrams
and shit. I've never been someone who took the supernatural
all that seriously. But nothing in the world made sense
like it used to. Fascists had just been driven out
of DC. Cascadia had not only succeeded, but was an
civil war of its own now. Mexico was gone and
replaced by self governing states of almost every stripe in
the political rainbow. China had backed white supremacists and other
(11:08):
nationalist types in an American civil war, and anti government
leftists were fighting alongside weirdos like me in the damn
US Army. I can't say those things were as weird
as naked dead don't call us vikings talking to me
in the street. But somehow all of that was just
comparably bizarre. Come let us arm ourselves and fight together.
You and I belgar said, So that's how I met
(11:31):
the Northern Host. Most people don't believe me, assume it
was just some kind of drunk wing nuts, maybe some
irregulars I'd never met before. But I saw what I saw,
and I believe it. The rest of us who survived
they saw it too.
Speaker 3 (11:43):
And how did it go? Yeah? Pardon the battle? How
did it go?
Speaker 4 (11:49):
We got the einherar into irregular's garb and armed them.
There were plenty of guns at that point in the
forgotten hell hole. Afront bullets not so much, but plenty
of guns. They were all comfortable with firearms, though one
fellow groused about what he wouldn't do for an axe
and shield, and another said what we had was fine,
but monofilament web guns were better than any combat shotgun.
(12:11):
To hear them, tell it. Fuck it? Why am I
pretending like I don't believe them. I believe them with
every bit of my soul, And damn what people think
of me for it. The Northern Host fight every night,
and every night there in a different time and place
most battles in human history were in the past, they said,
which sounds optimistic, doesn't it? But they said they fought
in every century up to the twenty fourth. Nothing happens
after the twenty fourth century. Ragnarok most likely the end
(12:35):
of the world, wolves eating the sun and the moon.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
All that.
Speaker 4 (12:39):
They stood guard out with me out front. Around midday
we got hit with an EMP. We knew that was coming.
It didn't screw us up much. We had a hardened
phone in the basement, and all our weapons operated just
as well in dumb mode as smart mode, including our
own EMPs. The White Army showed up, maybe a hundred men,
all men. That's their whole shtick. They came in on motorcycles,
(13:00):
ATVs and horses. More shtick like how fucking folksy they are.
We hit them with the EMPs anyway, level the field,
took out the ATVs. The bikes were retrofitted, no electric.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
And a horse.
Speaker 4 (13:12):
You can't e MP a horse. I don't know if
there was a skirmish in that war that didn't start
with both sides ritually knocking the other one. Back to
basically the twentieth century. I think the tactical EMP is
the reason there's anything left of this country. We took
a few pot shots while they were still at range,
but we didn't have the amo to waste on anything else.
Don't think we did any damage. They took up position
(13:33):
further up the hill in the ruins of the old Basilica.
Then we waited. We should have mined the church. That
old thing was blown half to shit anyway. It wouldn't
have made the world any worse if we'd either leveled
it or hidden explosives throughout. But you know, ethical war
or whatever, don't mind churches. The other side leveled every mosque,
synagogue and quote heretic church they got their hands on,
(13:56):
not to mention libraries in universities, and even the goddamn
Statue of Liberty because they had imigrants. But we were
supposed to be fighting a quote ethical war. Those two
words don't got nothing to do with one another, and
everyone knows it. So they hold up in the basilica,
and we pulled back into the library and we had
one of those good old fashioned standoffs where people die
slowly from sniper fire and everything is awful. That's when
(14:20):
Laura got shot right in the head because we missed
a spot when we bulletproofed the facade. She's dead. She
had natural red hair, but she always died at Redder
and her favorite show is Buffy the Vampire Slayer and
she liked to drink water out of long stem glasses.
She was I think she was thirty seven, way past
drafting age. She volunteered. It was her first engagement. She
(14:44):
was only there because she loved books, had plenty of
time to avoid looking at her corpse while she was
in there with us dead. Dwight was another one of
my friends in the unit, one of my favorite people,
hands down, total weirdo, and he was all obsessed with
that Viking shit and dark ages in general, as parents
had come over from Sweden, though his dad was originally
from Nigeria. Dwight had one degree in medieval studies and
(15:05):
another in African history, and I can't tell you how
many times during basic he'd run down the details of
this or that ancient battle, whether in Europe or Africa.
If there were guns involved, he didn't care about it,
but if there were swords and armor or spears and shields,
he was all in. He started talking to the Vikings
first thing. He was the first person to believe them,
to really believe them, and his faith was contagious. While
(15:28):
we were pinned down. He asked them everything. Mostly they
were quiet, even taciturn, but there was one thing they
were very insistent on that I overheard them talking about.
Nazis don't go to Valhalla. But why not? Dwight asked,
It takes two things to go to Valhalla. The spokesperson said,
you have to die in battle, and you have to
(15:48):
venerate Odin. A bunch of those fuckers are Odina's, He said, no,
they aren't. They're nationalists, fascists, racial separatists, They're all kinds
of things, but they don't venerate Odin. Whatever they think,
what do you mean? They only know one half of Odin.
They know the masculine side, the heterosexual side, the Christian side.
They worship a bastardization of our God, a basstardization first
(16:11):
created by a nationalist Christian eight hundred years ago that's
only gotten further afield since our Odin practices women's magic,
the magic of these sexually penetrated. We also worship female
gods of war, and male gods of the hearth, and
gods who change their gender when they're bored. Nazis don't
understand that any of it. In life, we raided sometimes traded.
(16:32):
Other times, we also did all sorts of things that
won't fit your modern sensibilities, things that were I alive,
you might kill me for. But we're not Nazis, and
people who worship a Christian version of our God most
certainly do not go to Valhalla. It was as if
the man had used up every word allotted to him
for the day, because I don't believe a one of
(16:52):
them spoke again before the battle began in.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
Earnest And how long was that.
Speaker 4 (16:59):
Another hour? Maybe the sun was still right overhead when
the White army rushed us. It was a bullshit move,
rushing us one part over confidence in one part desperation.
If you can imagine that they knew they were losing
the war at that point, but they had us more
than two to one, and we all know the KKK
commanders don't give two shits about the lives of their men.
(17:19):
That's when I put a bullet in a man's leg
while he was in the street running. It was a
good shot. He was running, and I led the target
and everything I've been aiming for center body masks, but
still at least one hundred yards against a moving target.
I was proud of that shot at the time on
a technical level, even if I'm not sure I'm proud
of it anymore now that I know the man's name.
(17:41):
We expected the charge. What we didn't expect was the
ordinance that knocked the reinforced front off its hinges. But
that happened, and almost all the fighting happened right there
on the first floor among the empty shelves. The whole
thing felt like it lasted half an hour. I've looked
it up since, from the time of the first blast
at the time the last shot was fired, talking about
three minutes and twelve seconds. We thought they were going
(18:04):
to pour in through the door after they blew it
the fuck off. So James got in there with our
one functioning automatic and he took at least ten of
the fash down with him before someone got him in
the neck. It was a faint and they blew a
hole in the side.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
Of the building.
Speaker 4 (18:16):
Well, well that was going on, and that's where they
got in close quarters. Combat is a whole different beast,
a worse one, maybe maybe a better one. I go
back on forth on that. Sometimes instead of sleeping, I
think about the pros and cons of various types of
absolute horror. Is it better to see your death coming
or to get picked off without knowing it? I would
have thought the Vikings would expend themselves right off. I
(18:38):
mean Vikings. They were starting to sober up by that point,
but still they'd been drinking, and they were already dead,
and they were doomed to die. But they were smarter
than that. Never risk themselves unnecessarily. Your next assumption of
a comrade you know is doomed is that they'll sacrifice
themselves to save others. None of that either. They knew
they were the best trained soldiers on the feet, and
(19:01):
that in order for us to win, they had to
be in the fight as long as they could. They
were smart like that. Assholes like that. I stationed myself
in the back. I fancy myself more of a sniper
than the assaults sort, so I watched the whole thing
go down. I also only hit three targets out of
one hundred and seventeen bullets I fired. But that's another story.
(19:21):
I watched us win. We took casualties of fifty percent,
half of those were KIA, but we defeated a force
twice our strength. I watched the einhear, but bayonet men
and shoot them. And I saw one of the Viking
women break a man's face apart with her fists. Soon after,
a bullet found her heart and she collapsed with a
smile on her lips. She disappeared, like literally she phased
(19:43):
out of existence. Beam me up, Scottie. We pushed them
back onto the pavement. And when I say we, I'm
honestly not being fair because I didn't do much of
it myself. We had them scattered and running, most of them.
Dwight was out there waving a pistol in one hand
and swinging a wooden stock right like a club in
the other. A Viking with a shotgun stood beside him.
(20:04):
I think the same fascy little shit killed them both,
maybe in the same three round burst. I tagged the
Fasci in his belly, and his friends helped him get away,
and the remaining Nazis ran. He survived his wound. Why
do we have so much information about the war? Does
it do me any good to know who I killed
and who I didn't?
Speaker 3 (20:22):
And Dwight?
Speaker 4 (20:24):
Dwight lay alone in the concrete, face down. There wasn't
much blood, but he was dead. Two ravens sat atop him,
one on each shoulder. I've never seen a raven in
Asheville in my life, not before, not since. There were
two of them, as big as people say those things are.
They barked and they sounded like dogs. One was loud,
like it was right where I was. The other was distant, echoing.
(20:47):
Then they flew away, directly up and towards the sun,
and I tried to watch to see where they went,
but you can't look directly at the sun like that.
I looked back down and Dwight was gone. Okay, so
his body was still there, but there was there was
something about him that was gone, and I don't know
how to tell you what it was. That was that
we won sort of. They didn't storm the library, which
(21:09):
I guess means we won. But sometimes I'd think I'd
burn every single book in that place that would bring
back Lare or Dwight or any of the rest of
my friends. The war was over at that point, even
if we didn't know it yet. So what did they
die for? I guess for symbols. Maybe symbols matter that much.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (21:27):
I deserted after that. Half the survivors of the Battle
of Asheville died less than a week later up in Pittsburgh.
And I suppose I'd be dead if i'd gone, And
it probably makes me a coward that I didn't. It's
not that I was afraid of dying. It's that I
was afraid of dying in battle because I believe in
Odin now it's hard not to believe in a god
without venerating him. I don't want to go to Valhalla.
(21:50):
I don't want to fight ever again, let alone every night.
I don't want to serve with the iron and they
are at the twilight of the gods sometime in the
twenty fifth century. If I don't want to do that,
then I don't want to die in battle. Dwight, though
I expect he's happy. I expect he dies every day
with a smile on his lips and meat and his belly.
He won't have to fight alongside the monsters of the
(22:11):
human race either, because, as I learned in Nashville, Nazis
don't go to Valhalla.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
All right, that was awesome, Margaret, thank you, Yeah, thanks.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Stan'll put a bunch of applause noise here because this
is not translating over.
Speaker 3 (22:40):
Yeah, and and and uh, an airhorn.
Speaker 5 (22:43):
Definitely an. I don't think the air horn is going
to be that as.
Speaker 3 (22:49):
Nope, Garrison airhorn. Thank you, Thank you, Garrison. Margaret. How
how long did you write that?
Speaker 4 (23:01):
I wrote that I believe in twenty seventeen, maybe twenty eighteen.
Speaker 5 (23:06):
Oh yeah, well it's not gotten less relevant.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
Yeah, man, I uh, there's definitely some times where I've
wished for a platoon of vikings, yeah, to deal with
some shit.
Speaker 5 (23:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
Well this has been it could happen here and this
has been spooky week. I hope you enjoyed this scary
story that's also relevant to our theme of collapse. Margaret,
you want to tell the people where they can find you.
Speaker 4 (23:38):
Yeah, I'm on Twitter at Magpie Killjoy. I'm on Instagram
at Margaret Kiljoy. I'm on Patreon at patreon dot com
slash Margaret Kiljoy, where this story and many other stories
are available for anyone who sponsors me at a dollar
a month. And if you make less money than I do,
then just message me and I'll give you all my
ship for free. And I have an upcome because you've
asked me to plug things and I'm definitely just gonna
(23:59):
ahead and plug things Hell yeah, I have a book
coming out from AKA Press. It's a reissue of my
anarchist yutopian book A Country of Ghosts. If you like
my very I like writing war stories, but I specifically
like writing war stories that are actually sad and how
about how war is horrible? And so A Country of
Ghosts is such a book and this story will eventually.
(24:21):
I'm excited to say I just signed a contract for
AK Press is going to put out a short story
anthology of mine, which will include the story.
Speaker 5 (24:28):
Yeah, that sounds incredibly rad.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
Yes, great publisher. Yeah, not biased at all of that.
Speaker 4 (24:36):
No, no, no, nor towards stories of the Second American
Civil War with never heard of.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
Characters I've been introduced to just today. Yes, all right,
we'll check out Margaret's book Parentheses, s uh and and
check out this show when and it comes back someday
one day. You'll never know when, but you'll hear a
(25:04):
whisper on the wind, and there will be or it'll
be the next weekday after one of those.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
It could happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
cool Zonemedia dot com or check us out on the
iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts,
you can find sources for It could happen here, Updated
monthly at cool zonemedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.
Al Zone Media.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Book Club book Club book Club book Club. Hello and
welcome to the Coolzone Media book Club rerun edition. It's
the Cool Zone Media book Club, the only book club.
You don't have to do the reading because I, Margaret
Kiljoy do it for you. And it's a rerun episode
(00:29):
because I'm on the road and terrible things are happening.
Not on the road specifically, but I'm on tour, and
also an election went badly, and so I didn't record
a new episode. But I thought to myself, you know
what episode has been a while since people heard, and
actually it predates Coolzone Media book Club. It's part of
(00:49):
the precursor to Coolzone Media book Club. When I would
just come on and read stories on it could happen here. Well,
I thought I would read a story called the Northern Host,
which is actually most people call it my no Nazis
in Valhalla story. And that's fine because for some weird reason,
a lot of people are thinking about what the civil
(01:10):
conflict in the United States might look like, and so
what a good time to tell you a story about
the Battle of Asheville as fought by some ghosts. Here's
the story. Well, here's me introducing the story again because
I don't know what's about to happen. I'm just this
is the introduction to a rerun episode. Here it goes, It's.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
All right, I did it, Sophy, I'm done for the day, Okay,
taking the rest off by It's okay.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
We have a cooler replacement for you today. Anyways, we
sure do.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
Uh So, you know, normally this is a show about collapse,
all that good stuff, YadA, YadA YadA, but fuck it,
it's Halloween week. So we're we're we're we're we're making
sure all of our stuff has a little bit of
an extra spooky twist. It's like when you make a
martini and you decide to actually put vermouth inside it,
as opposed to just kind of waving it nearby. That's
what we're doing this week, with spookiness being the vermouth
(02:20):
and mixing up our martini. Today is Margaret Kiljoy.
Speaker 4 (02:25):
Margaret Hello, Hello, I'm a famous mixologist, so literally this
will be very good.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
Now, Margaret, Today, for this very special episode of it
could happen here on Spooky Week. You have written us, well,
you've written a short story, and you're going to read
it and and and we're all gonna enjoy it? Is
that is that accurate?
Speaker 4 (02:47):
I hope at least I can. I can testify to
the first parts, and I hope for the last part.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
Excellent. All right, well with without further ado or with
minimal further ado. Let's uh, let's let's let's you know,
with the stuff, with the stuff, Margaret with the stuff.
Speaker 4 (03:04):
Well, and this is great because this is actually a
short story that you start reading of.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
Oh shit, yeah, where's that link? You tasted it to me,
but I don't have my phone on me.
Speaker 4 (03:13):
Okay, let me put it in the chat here.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Based impressive, to say the least.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
Based in fiction, pilled. Okay, I start reading the italics.
Speaker 4 (03:26):
Yeah, it's the first couple paragraphs of introduction, and then
you're interviewing me.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
All right, motherfuckers, let's get it started. The Northern Host
for all it's lingering horror and misery. The wake of
a war is rich terragn for a folklorist like myself.
(03:53):
More people report more supernatural experiences during times of war
than times of peace. Some of my peers have argued
the stress and shock of battle leaves our brains more
susceptible to mass illusion. Others claim that the veil between
worlds remains thin when so many are passing from life
to death. The Second American Civil War has been no exception.
(04:14):
Most famously, of course, soldiers from each of the three
armies present at the fifteen day Siege of Saint Louis
reported a wailing man who walked among the wounded, healing
some and ending the lives of others. On the Cascadian Front,
rebel forces spoke of black bears, who in effect stood
sentry for their guerrilla positions. During the White Army's occupation
of Washington, d C. Civilians and soldiers alike reported apparitions
(04:39):
pouring out from the Pentagon Crater every new moon. Of
all the various myths and legends to spring up in
the wake of the recent conflict, however, I find myself
most strongly drawn to the stories of the Northern host.
Never have I heard a myth recounted in such detail
by such a wide variety of people. My favorite telling
comes from Private Sarah Dollar in the Battle of Asheville.
(05:01):
This interview was recorded in the spring of twenty thirty
five and lightly edited for clarity with permission of the subject.
Note that the subject refers to the White Army by
pejoratives throughout these have been left intact for the historical record.
Could you introduce yourself and tell me what you saw.
Speaker 4 (05:20):
Yeah, my name is Sarah Daher. I'm thirty one years old.
I live in Ashville, in the Appalachian region of the
United States of America, on stolen Cherokee Land. My US
military rank was private. They made us all privates when
they incorporated the Irregulars into the army, but I only
served in the Union to fight the White Army a
year later. I'm one of those crazy radicals who doesn't
think the reconfiguration goes far enough. I'd never fired a
(05:43):
gun in my life before the Irregulars, and I hope
I never fire another one again. By temperament, I'm neither
a lover nor a fighter. I'm just your average trans
girl who likes Kats and hates Nazis. I fought in
three engagements in Weaverville, Leicester, and Asheville. I think I
killed two.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
One of them.
Speaker 4 (06:01):
I know I killed him. I saw him bleed out
and I saw him taken away in a black bag.
The other person was a man I shot in the
thigh during the Battle of Ashville. I didn't know you
could die from a bullet in the thigh, But I've
spent a lot of time looking at casualty records, and
someone who fit that man's general description died in that
battle from a bullet to the thigh.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Does that bother you? Yes?
Speaker 4 (06:24):
No, I don't know. I don't lose sleep over it,
but I think about it a lot. I look at
the docks on both of them. The first guy was
a true believer, a real blood and soil type. It
doesn't bother me that I mingled those two things for him.
The second man, though, I'm not so sure, he signed
up because his son signed up. I don't have any
kids myself, but I could see myself doing that. His
(06:46):
son survived the war.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
Have you been in contact with his son?
Speaker 4 (06:51):
No? Fuck that guy. That kid's a fucking Nazi, and
I don't know how he talked his way out of
the tribunals.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
Can you tell me what you saw at the Battle
of Asheville.
Speaker 4 (07:00):
This was during the Fascist Spring Offensive last year. You
know Hitler's birthday, April twentieth. By that point, the White
Army was pretty much done, but they weren't about to
go down without doing some major symbolic damage. So there
were about forty of us, all irregulars, with our own commanders,
no army oversight. Morale was down. We felt pretty abandoned,
common sentiment in the South. I was on the street
(07:22):
out in front of the library, walking rounds. Downtown was
half rubble at that point. Only the library was standing,
because symbols matter and all that bullshit, So that's where
we were making a stand. Neither side had artillery. Really,
by that point, the brass had just commandeered even our
RPGs for the quote real fight. Air support wasn't coming,
not for them and not for us. Really, the Battle
(07:45):
of Asheville was like nothing to the rest of the world,
and we knew it. So I was doing the rounds
thinking about my shit luck, thinking maybe I was going
to die, and how so many people had died, and
what's another dead girl to add to the pile. I
was thinking about how at least this dead girls going
to die surrounded by or in defense of books. Then
I heard dogs from around the side of the building.
(08:07):
One barked loud and near, the other sort of distant
and echoey. I went to check it out, turned the
corner and there was this naked guy. He was pale
as hell, tall, tattooed and scarred, and like I said,
he was naked as the sun. I stared at him,
he stared at me. I got so distracted trying to
figure him out that it took me a moment to
realize there were nine others behind him, or maybe they
(08:29):
weren't there at first, I don't know. Most of them
were men, mostly of the tall Norse looking variety, but
there was a Middle Eastern man and three women, including
one who by my read was Latin X No dogs
anywhere that I could see. The man closest to me
he asked me something in a language I didn't know.
I just kind of stared. He asked me another question
(08:50):
in another language. What I asked?
Speaker 3 (08:52):
Who are you?
Speaker 4 (08:55):
Who are we fighting? He asked? His accent was thick,
and I couldn't place it for the life of me.
I mean, I know now, but I'm sure shit didn't
know it then we I asked what I was due
back out front, because I was a century doing the
rounds and this sure needed reporting. What the hell was
I going to tell people? Who are we fighting? Where
are we You're in Asheville? Who are you ah the
(09:18):
American conflict, the man said behind him, others nodded. Their
movements were sloppy, dream like they were drunk. I later
realized one of them had dried blood running down from
her lip onto her not insubstantial belly. You're fighting the nationalists,
the first one said, We're here to help you. Who
are you, I asked this third time he actually answered,
(09:40):
my name is Bellgear.
Speaker 5 (09:42):
We are the dead.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
We are the ainhear from Valhalla. Every day we are
sent to a battle to fight, and we die. The
others behind him nodded, definitely drunk. Now, I know there
were good folks on our side who were into European paganism,
but you have to understand that a lot more of
the fashion were into that shit than anybody else. If
they hadn't been naked and drunk, I might have mistaken
(10:05):
them for the enemy and shot them. Valhalla, I said,
reciting the tiny bit. I knew that's where vikings go
if they die in battle, feast every day and fight
every night in Odin's Hall until the end of the world,
where you like also fight and die. But uh wolf
feeds the sun or something close enough, Belgar said. I mean,
(10:26):
Odin only gets half the battle dead, and Viking isn't
a good name for us. But sure, and you're here
because we are to take arms alongside you, fight your
enemies and die today. Am I going to die today?
Only the seers and the gods know that. I'd been
calling myself a witch half my life, but honestly that
(10:46):
was mostly because I like tarot and astrology and panagrams
and shit. I've never been someone who took the supernatural
all that seriously. But nothing in the world made sense
like it used to. Fascists had just been driven out
of DC. Cascadia had not only succeeded, but was an
civil war of its own now. Mexico was gone and
replaced by self governing states of almost every stripe in
the political rainbow. China had backed white supremacists and other
(11:08):
nationalist types in an American civil war, and anti government
leftists were fighting alongside weirdos like me in the damn
US Army. I can't say those things were as weird
as naked dead don't call us vikings talking to me
in the street. But somehow all of that was just
comparably bizarre. Come let us arm ourselves and fight together.
You and I belgar said, So that's how I met
(11:31):
the Northern Host. Most people don't believe me, assume it
was just some kind of drunk wing nuts, maybe some
irregulars I'd never met before. But I saw what I saw,
and I believe it. The rest of us who survived
they saw it too.
Speaker 3 (11:43):
And how did it go? Yeah? Pardon the battle? How
did it go?
Speaker 4 (11:49):
We got the einherar into irregular's garb and armed them.
There were plenty of guns at that point in the
forgotten hell hole. Afront bullets not so much, but plenty
of guns. They were all comfortable with firearms, though one
fellow groused about what he wouldn't do for an axe
and shield, and another said what we had was fine,
but monofilament web guns were better than any combat shotgun.
(12:11):
To hear them, tell it. Fuck it? Why am I
pretending like I don't believe them. I believe them with
every bit of my soul, And damn what people think
of me for it. The Northern Host fight every night,
and every night there in a different time and place
most battles in human history were in the past, they said,
which sounds optimistic, doesn't it? But they said they fought
in every century up to the twenty fourth. Nothing happens
after the twenty fourth century. Ragnarok most likely the end
(12:35):
of the world, wolves eating the sun and the moon.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
All that.
Speaker 4 (12:39):
They stood guard out with me out front. Around midday
we got hit with an EMP. We knew that was coming.
It didn't screw us up much. We had a hardened
phone in the basement, and all our weapons operated just
as well in dumb mode as smart mode, including our
own EMPs. The White Army showed up, maybe a hundred men,
all men. That's their whole shtick. They came in on motorcycles,
(13:00):
ATVs and horses. More shtick like how fucking folksy they are.
We hit them with the EMPs anyway, level the field,
took out the ATVs. The bikes were retrofitted, no electric.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
And a horse.
Speaker 4 (13:12):
You can't e MP a horse. I don't know if
there was a skirmish in that war that didn't start
with both sides ritually knocking the other one. Back to
basically the twentieth century. I think the tactical EMP is
the reason there's anything left of this country. We took
a few pot shots while they were still at range,
but we didn't have the amo to waste on anything else.
Don't think we did any damage. They took up position
(13:33):
further up the hill in the ruins of the old Basilica.
Then we waited. We should have mined the church. That
old thing was blown half to shit anyway. It wouldn't
have made the world any worse if we'd either leveled
it or hidden explosives throughout. But you know, ethical war
or whatever, don't mind churches. The other side leveled every mosque,
synagogue and quote heretic church they got their hands on,
(13:56):
not to mention libraries in universities, and even the goddamn
Statue of Liberty because they had imigrants. But we were
supposed to be fighting a quote ethical war. Those two
words don't got nothing to do with one another, and
everyone knows it. So they hold up in the basilica,
and we pulled back into the library and we had
one of those good old fashioned standoffs where people die
slowly from sniper fire and everything is awful. That's when
(14:20):
Laura got shot right in the head because we missed
a spot when we bulletproofed the facade. She's dead. She
had natural red hair, but she always died at Redder
and her favorite show is Buffy the Vampire Slayer and
she liked to drink water out of long stem glasses.
She was I think she was thirty seven, way past
drafting age. She volunteered. It was her first engagement. She
(14:44):
was only there because she loved books, had plenty of
time to avoid looking at her corpse while she was
in there with us dead. Dwight was another one of
my friends in the unit, one of my favorite people,
hands down, total weirdo, and he was all obsessed with
that Viking shit and dark ages in general, as parents
had come over from Sweden, though his dad was originally
from Nigeria. Dwight had one degree in medieval studies and
(15:05):
another in African history, and I can't tell you how
many times during basic he'd run down the details of
this or that ancient battle, whether in Europe or Africa.
If there were guns involved, he didn't care about it,
but if there were swords and armor or spears and shields,
he was all in. He started talking to the Vikings
first thing. He was the first person to believe them,
to really believe them, and his faith was contagious. While
(15:28):
we were pinned down. He asked them everything. Mostly they
were quiet, even taciturn, but there was one thing they
were very insistent on that I overheard them talking about.
Nazis don't go to Valhalla. But why not? Dwight asked,
It takes two things to go to Valhalla. The spokesperson said,
you have to die in battle, and you have to
(15:48):
venerate Odin. A bunch of those fuckers are Odina's, He said, no,
they aren't. They're nationalists, fascists, racial separatists, They're all kinds
of things, but they don't venerate Odin. Whatever they think,
what do you mean? They only know one half of Odin.
They know the masculine side, the heterosexual side, the Christian side.
They worship a bastardization of our God, a basstardization first
(16:11):
created by a nationalist Christian eight hundred years ago that's
only gotten further afield since our Odin practices women's magic,
the magic of these sexually penetrated. We also worship female
gods of war, and male gods of the hearth, and
gods who change their gender when they're bored. Nazis don't
understand that any of it. In life, we raided sometimes traded.
(16:32):
Other times, we also did all sorts of things that
won't fit your modern sensibilities, things that were I alive,
you might kill me for. But we're not Nazis, and
people who worship a Christian version of our God most
certainly do not go to Valhalla. It was as if
the man had used up every word allotted to him
for the day, because I don't believe a one of
(16:52):
them spoke again before the battle began in.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
Earnest And how long was that.
Speaker 4 (16:59):
Another hour? Maybe the sun was still right overhead when
the White army rushed us. It was a bullshit move,
rushing us one part over confidence in one part desperation.
If you can imagine that they knew they were losing
the war at that point, but they had us more
than two to one, and we all know the KKK
commanders don't give two shits about the lives of their men.
(17:19):
That's when I put a bullet in a man's leg
while he was in the street running. It was a
good shot. He was running, and I led the target
and everything I've been aiming for center body masks, but
still at least one hundred yards against a moving target.
I was proud of that shot at the time on
a technical level, even if I'm not sure I'm proud
of it anymore now that I know the man's name.
(17:41):
We expected the charge. What we didn't expect was the
ordinance that knocked the reinforced front off its hinges. But
that happened, and almost all the fighting happened right there
on the first floor among the empty shelves. The whole
thing felt like it lasted half an hour. I've looked
it up since, from the time of the first blast
at the time the last shot was fired, talking about
three minutes and twelve seconds. We thought they were going
(18:04):
to pour in through the door after they blew it
the fuck off. So James got in there with our
one functioning automatic and he took at least ten of
the fash down with him before someone got him in
the neck. It was a faint and they blew a
hole in the side.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
Of the building.
Speaker 4 (18:16):
Well, well that was going on, and that's where they
got in close quarters. Combat is a whole different beast,
a worse one, maybe maybe a better one. I go
back on forth on that. Sometimes instead of sleeping, I
think about the pros and cons of various types of
absolute horror. Is it better to see your death coming
or to get picked off without knowing it? I would
have thought the Vikings would expend themselves right off. I
(18:38):
mean Vikings. They were starting to sober up by that point,
but still they'd been drinking, and they were already dead,
and they were doomed to die. But they were smarter
than that. Never risk themselves unnecessarily. Your next assumption of
a comrade you know is doomed is that they'll sacrifice
themselves to save others. None of that either. They knew
they were the best trained soldiers on the feet, and
(19:01):
that in order for us to win, they had to
be in the fight as long as they could. They
were smart like that. Assholes like that. I stationed myself
in the back. I fancy myself more of a sniper
than the assaults sort, so I watched the whole thing
go down. I also only hit three targets out of
one hundred and seventeen bullets I fired. But that's another story.
(19:21):
I watched us win. We took casualties of fifty percent,
half of those were KIA, but we defeated a force
twice our strength. I watched the einhear, but bayonet men
and shoot them. And I saw one of the Viking
women break a man's face apart with her fists. Soon after,
a bullet found her heart and she collapsed with a
smile on her lips. She disappeared, like literally she phased
(19:43):
out of existence. Beam me up, Scottie. We pushed them
back onto the pavement. And when I say we, I'm
honestly not being fair because I didn't do much of
it myself. We had them scattered and running, most of them.
Dwight was out there waving a pistol in one hand
and swinging a wooden stock right like a club in
the other. A Viking with a shotgun stood beside him.
(20:04):
I think the same fascy little shit killed them both,
maybe in the same three round burst. I tagged the
Fasci in his belly, and his friends helped him get away,
and the remaining Nazis ran. He survived his wound. Why
do we have so much information about the war? Does
it do me any good to know who I killed
and who I didn't?
Speaker 3 (20:22):
And Dwight?
Speaker 4 (20:24):
Dwight lay alone in the concrete, face down. There wasn't
much blood, but he was dead. Two ravens sat atop him,
one on each shoulder. I've never seen a raven in
Asheville in my life, not before, not since. There were
two of them, as big as people say those things are.
They barked and they sounded like dogs. One was loud,
like it was right where I was. The other was distant, echoing.
(20:47):
Then they flew away, directly up and towards the sun,
and I tried to watch to see where they went,
but you can't look directly at the sun like that.
I looked back down and Dwight was gone. Okay, so
his body was still there, but there was there was
something about him that was gone, and I don't know
how to tell you what it was. That was that
we won sort of. They didn't storm the library, which
(21:09):
I guess means we won. But sometimes I'd think I'd
burn every single book in that place that would bring
back Lare or Dwight or any of the rest of
my friends. The war was over at that point, even
if we didn't know it yet. So what did they
die for? I guess for symbols. Maybe symbols matter that much.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (21:27):
I deserted after that. Half the survivors of the Battle
of Asheville died less than a week later up in Pittsburgh.
And I suppose I'd be dead if i'd gone, And
it probably makes me a coward that I didn't. It's
not that I was afraid of dying. It's that I
was afraid of dying in battle because I believe in
Odin now it's hard not to believe in a god
without venerating him. I don't want to go to Valhalla.
(21:50):
I don't want to fight ever again, let alone every night.
I don't want to serve with the iron and they
are at the twilight of the gods sometime in the
twenty fifth century. If I don't want to do that,
then I don't want to die in battle. Dwight, though
I expect he's happy. I expect he dies every day
with a smile on his lips and meat and his belly.
He won't have to fight alongside the monsters of the
(22:11):
human race either, because, as I learned in Nashville, Nazis
don't go to Valhalla.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
All right, that was awesome, Margaret, thank you, Yeah, thanks.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Stan'll put a bunch of applause noise here because this
is not translating over.
Speaker 3 (22:40):
Yeah, and and and uh, an airhorn.
Speaker 5 (22:43):
Definitely an. I don't think the air horn is going
to be that as.
Speaker 3 (22:49):
Nope, Garrison airhorn. Thank you, Thank you, Garrison. Margaret. How
how long did you write that?
Speaker 4 (23:01):
I wrote that I believe in twenty seventeen, maybe twenty eighteen.
Speaker 5 (23:06):
Oh yeah, well it's not gotten less relevant.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
Yeah, man, I uh, there's definitely some times where I've
wished for a platoon of vikings, yeah, to deal with
some shit.
Speaker 5 (23:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
Well this has been it could happen here and this
has been spooky week. I hope you enjoyed this scary
story that's also relevant to our theme of collapse. Margaret,
you want to tell the people where they can find you.
Speaker 4 (23:38):
Yeah, I'm on Twitter at Magpie Killjoy. I'm on Instagram
at Margaret Kiljoy. I'm on Patreon at patreon dot com
slash Margaret Kiljoy, where this story and many other stories
are available for anyone who sponsors me at a dollar
a month. And if you make less money than I do,
then just message me and I'll give you all my
ship for free. And I have an upcome because you've
asked me to plug things and I'm definitely just gonna
(23:59):
ahead and plug things Hell yeah, I have a book
coming out from AKA Press. It's a reissue of my
anarchist yutopian book A Country of Ghosts. If you like
my very I like writing war stories, but I specifically
like writing war stories that are actually sad and how
about how war is horrible? And so A Country of
Ghosts is such a book and this story will eventually.
(24:21):
I'm excited to say I just signed a contract for
AK Press is going to put out a short story
anthology of mine, which will include the story.
Speaker 5 (24:28):
Yeah, that sounds incredibly rad.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
Yes, great publisher. Yeah, not biased at all of that.
Speaker 4 (24:36):
No, no, no, nor towards stories of the Second American
Civil War with never heard of.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
Characters I've been introduced to just today. Yes, all right,
we'll check out Margaret's book Parentheses, s uh and and
check out this show when and it comes back someday
one day. You'll never know when, but you'll hear a
(25:04):
whisper on the wind, and there will be or it'll
be the next weekday after one of those.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
It could happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
cool Zonemedia dot com or check us out on the
iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts,
you can find sources for It could happen here, Updated
monthly at cool zonemedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.
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