October 8, 2023 • 39 mins
In this first ever episode of the Cool Zone Media Book Club, Margaret Killjoy reads the first two chapters of her folk horror novella the Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion to Robert.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
All Zone Media. Hey everyone, it is it could happen
here a podcast about things falling apart, about a little
thing we like to call the crumbles, which is more
or less the state of affairs we're all living in
right now. You know, hottest year on record, you know,
unprecedented wildfires, smoke blanketing half the country, all that good jazz.
(00:26):
It gets one in the mood for stories and not
necessarily you know, happy stories, but not necessarily sad ones either.
You know, this is normally a daily news podcast focused
on collapse and things falling apart, but here at cool
Zone Media, a lot of us are big fans of fiction,
(00:46):
particularly speculative science fiction, often with a dystopian bent to it.
I've written a book in that theme. And then Margaret Kiljoy,
host of cool People who did cool stuff, and one
of one of our favorite people is an author of
numerous short stories, novels, novellas, all focusing on kind of
(01:09):
at least elements of the feeling of collapse. And so Margaret,
you know, you came to us a while ago. Andre,
like you know it would be neat, is starting a
literary magazine that's focused on the same kind of stuff
that we cover from a news basis in our daily
show because basically fiction is has collapsed as a way
(01:33):
for people to make a living, but somehow we have not.
So we're trying to sneak our way into paying people
for writing fiction. And that'll work as long as you
people listen. Margaret, that's that's what I got for an intro?
How was that? Is that what you hoped for? Right? For?
Speaker 2 (01:49):
No, that's good. That puts it more clearly than I would.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
That's good.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
We're taking over Sundays because there really wasn't anything to
take over because there wasn't anything.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
We weren't doing any Sunday content. Yeah, that's right. Now
it's really a daily show bitches.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Yeah, because no one there is no no one goes
to church anymore. But we suddenly still have Sunday free,
and so we figured we can sneak into Sundays.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Yeah. Are we saying that this is church for you
now that we are your God? Yes? Essentially?
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Yeah? Why not? Yeah, this story does have things that
are like gods in it.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Well, the first thing that we're going to do, the
first several episodes are going to be one of my novellas.
The general format is going to be that I'm going
to have authors on to read me stories. But I
thought that I would start with one of my own
and bring Robert on to read Robert a story.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
I love stories.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
The first story that we're going to read is a
novella that I wrote called The Lamble Slaughter of the Lion.
It was originally published by tour dot com and you
can read it in paper form if you want, or
you can listen to it here.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Margaret, what separates legally a novel from a novella.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
It's a length thing. It's a novellas are short novels.
It goes flash fiction, short story, novelette, novella, novel, and honestly,
usually people just use the word counts of various awards
in order to determine the categorization of these things.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
That makes sense.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
And from that point of view, oh, I don't have
it in front of me, but I think a novella
starts at about seventeen thousand words and runs up to
about forty thousand words and then novel takes over. And
this is at least I think for the Hugo Awards,
which this is not a winner of, but it is
the categorization that people use. I like writing avellas I
write short by default anyway, And I don't know whether
(03:59):
it's undiagnosed ADHD or what.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
I think it's just a matter of skill because and
here's the thing, a lot of people who aren't in
the viz may know, it's harder to write good short
fiction than good long fiction. At least that's my opinion,
as it's the same reason why one of the things
that was neat for a while about Twitter, It hasn't
been this way for a minute, but back when there
(04:24):
was an actual cap on how much you could post,
there was a degree to which. One of the reasons
writers liked it a lot, especially joke writers, is it
kind of forced brevity, and like brevity is the soul
of wit, you know. That's the thing. I don't know.
It's silly to actually say like that short novels are
harder than long novels, But as a general rule, I
(04:45):
think the most impactful fiction I read tends to be
short fiction, even though I prefer long fiction because it
gives me something to do with my time. But like
when I think about stuff that's like hit me, like
in the gut, real hard. It's usually been short fiction.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Yeah, no, that makes sense to me. I remember in
high school someone told me the like cliche that every
novelist is a failed short story writer, and every short
story writer is a failed poet. Yeah, and so I
guess by that standards, I'm a failed poet. But don't worry.
I'm not subjecting you to that. I'm only subjecting you
to my fiction.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
That's right, that's right. I will subject you guys to
my poetry one of these days. But uh no, I won't.
I didn't have a joke there. I was thinking I
was the figure in one, but it turns out I
don't have one. So let's just do the story, all right.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
So this book is called The Lamble Slaughter the Lion.
It's the first book in the Danielle Kine series, which
currently only has two books in it. But we'll see
about me trying to solve that chapter one. Sometimes you
have to pull a knife. It's not a good thing.
I don't enjoy it. Some times you've just got to
(06:00):
get a knife in your hands and make it clear
which way the stabby end is pointing. Let me out here,
I'd said, before the knife got involved. It hadn't been
a question. Men always assumed that declarative statements like that
are questions. This is a ghost town, he said. I
hadn't caught his name. He'd been nice enough to pick
me up pitch hiking in the middle of nowhere, Iowa,
but he wasn't nice enough to let me out where
(06:22):
I wanted. That's all right, I said, just let me out.
There'll be someplace better, a wal Mart or something. I'll
let you out there. Let me out here. I can't
just let you out in the middle of nowhere, not
by yourself. It isn't safe, he said it without a
trace of irony. He locked the doors. That's when the
knife got involved. I slid it out from my Jean's pocket,
(06:45):
clicked it open. Pulling a knife means going double or nothing.
I was either going to get out of the situation
or the situation was about to get a lot worse. Jesus,
he said. He pulled over. I unlocked my door, grabbed
my pack, and hit the gravel before he came to
a complete stop. Fucking bitch. I flipped off his car
as he drove away, But at least he was driving away.
(07:07):
The worst of it was he'd probably thought he was
just taking care of me, that he was a nice guy.
I hoped bad things were going to happen to him,
and soon ten years of putting up with shit like
that from drivers, it was getting old. Hell, at twenty eight,
I was getting old. Ten years ago, I'd talked to
drivers about anything and loved them for it. I loved
(07:27):
the nice ones for their kindness. I love the crazies
for their stories. And sure I hated the racist pieces
of shit, but if nothing else, I got to feel
like I had the pulse of this racist piece of
shit country. But a decade is an awful long time,
and whatever shine I'd found on the shit that his
hitchhiking had long since faded. Still it got me where
I wanted to go. The town's welcome sign had been
(07:50):
painted over. Don't know what it used to say, but now,
in clean, stenciled letters, it said Freedom, Iowa City Limits, unincorporated,
an entire town, abandoned by a dead economy and occupied
by squatters and activists and anarchists. It was the last
place Clay had lived, the last place he'd spent much
(08:11):
time before he'd found his way west, and his hand
had shown his razor the way to his throat. No
warning signs, no cries for help. I had a lot
of questions. If there were answers, I might find them
in Freedom, Iowa. I shouldered my pack and clipped the
waistbelt shut. It had been Clay's pack. I had his
suicide note folded up in the smallest pocket. The road
(08:33):
into town was two lanes that led away from the highway,
paved with pale patched asphalt. The trees beside it climbed
toward the sky, and I walked in the double yellow
with something of a spring to my step. After a
hundred yards and a couple turns, when the trees were
getting thick enough to cast the whole of the road
into shadow, I saw a deer on the shoulder ahead,
(08:55):
rooting at something on the pavement. The beast was crimson red,
blood red. I didn't even know deer came in that color.
I crossed to the far side of the street so
I wouldn't disturb him, but I couldn't help staring. A
rabbit was dead on the ground beneath him, its belly up,
its rib cage splayed open. The deer looked up at me,
(09:17):
then his red muzzle dripping red blood. On the right
side of his head, he bore an antler. On the
left side of his head, he bore two Jesus. I said,
I kept walking, because what else do you do? He
watched me until I was around the next bend, and
I couldn't help feeling his gaze on my back. The
(09:37):
only sounds in the air were birds and the faint
white noise of a nearby river, and wild flowers were
in bloom on the forest floor. Another quarter mile and
I stepped out of the woods and saw the town
on the far bank of a small, slow moving river.
Half a hundred houses were set into the hillside along
a single winding street. A few old cars were part
(10:00):
along the curb and in driveways, but I couldn't get
a gauge on whether they were in use or abandoned.
A two lane bridge spanned the river. Clay had talked
about the place like it was paradise. I crossed over,
pausing to look down over the guard rail at the
water thirty feet below as it tumbled and tore its
way over river rock. Just at the other end of
(10:20):
the bridge, a boarded up gas station was covered in
street art as good as any I'd seen in Oakland.
It was a quarter mile farther up the hill to
the first houses, and most were overgrown, more than a
few with caved in roofs. Others looked haphazardly maintained. I
walked into town, but I didn't see any signs of life,
(10:40):
no smoke or lights or motion. No one was out
on the street or sitting on their porches. Maybe everyone
had left when Clay had. Maybe the water was poisoned
the same as it seemed to be in half of
Middle America, and singing shit like that fucked up mutated
deer with three antlers made everyone realize it wasn't safe
to stick around. The first five or six houses I
(11:03):
passed were split levels set into the hill. Welded rebar
statues populated one front lawn, a three antler deer amongst
other woodland and farmyard animals. Even the statue seemed to
bore into me with its stare, and the damn thing
didn't even have eyes. The next house, alone on its block,
was an old colonial. It was handsome, its wood siding
(11:26):
painted dark. Its circular attic window is an eye, casting
its longing gaze out over the river.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
And Iowa.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
I walked up the cement steps to a large wooden
patio on the side of the house and peered in
through the sliding door. But it was darker inside than outside,
and I only saw my own straggly short hair reflected
and a silhouette in the glass. I sat down on
the porch chair and leaned back to ponder the empty
town and my lack of luck. I had no idea
(11:56):
how to find what I wanted to find. I had
come here because I needed motion. Without motion, there was
nothing without motion, I was probably as dead as clay.
I kicked back in the chair, put my feet up
on the table, and looked out over the town. I'd
make it my kingdom for the day, I decided, and
hit the road again tomorrow. I had canned food enough
(12:18):
to see me through at least three meals, and if
I got desperate, I had a jar of peanut butter
somewhere in my bag that would keep me alive for days.
I took out my phone and headphones, put on black metal,
and dozed off. I like the tiny little dreams I
get when I sleep. In the afternoon that day, I
was a very young goblin riding this bronosaurus like thing,
(12:41):
and I was in love with a human boy, and
I was afraid he'd find out I was a goblin.
When I'm awake, I'm happy sometimes, but I don't know
that I'm ever as happy awake as I am when
I'm dreaming. Awake, I've got all this nostalgia, this feeling
that I'm separated from something I can smell but can't touch.
I get these sudden, un arable realizations that I should
(13:01):
have been more present during all those moments in my life,
that I should have taken the time to be like,
oh shit, man, this is my life and it's fucking awesome.
Sometimes dreaming I just swim in the joy and the
intensity and the nowness of life. Late in the afternoon,
I heard rustling and opened my eyes. Halfway on the
(13:22):
railing in front of me, a rabbit cleaned its paws.
I watched it, drowsy. It turned toward me, and its
chest was a raw red wound, its rib cage and
organs gone. It smelled like death and blood, and I
don't usually smell much in my dreams. It hopped away,
and I presumed it a nightmare and fell back asleep.
(13:46):
Get your feet off the table. What I asked, startled awake,
ripping out my earbuds. Can't have dirty boots on the table,
he said. I got my feet back on the porch
and turned around. A gangly, handsome fellow was looking at
me with a brown fist on his hip and a
weird sort of smile hovering on his face. His septum
was pierced. One side of his head was shaved. The
(14:08):
rest of his hair was thick black curls. His short
dress was clean, faded black, stitched up in a few
places with dental floss. He was heavily tattooed, mostly black.
Work Behind him, the sliding glass door was open. Obviously
I hadn't heard him walk out. And who are you,
he asked Danielle, I said. He was looking me over,
(14:32):
his head cocked to the side, trying to make up
his mind about something. I uh, I didn't know anyone
lived here. I told him, well, he said, someone does.
There's at least four or five spots left if you
want your own place, more than that too, if you
know how to patch a roof. He stared at me
as I tried to process this information. Oh, you're new,
(14:53):
like new, new, like don't know anything new. I just
got here, I said, I was thinking maybe there wasn't
anyone left. I'm vulture. He said, what pronouns do you prefer?
She I said, I use He told me. I nodded, well, Danielle.
I came outside because there was a strange woman sleeping
on her porch. Everyone else there inside wondering who the
(15:17):
hell you are. He started drumming his fingers on his chin. Wade,
what's your last name, Cain. It wasn't my legal name,
but it was my punk name. You're Danny Kine. His
whole body loosened up and a smile exploded across his face.
I had rather Danielle than Danny, I said. I hadn't
let anyone but Clay called me Danny. In years, Clay
(15:39):
talked about you. I don't know. Maybe every day, come inside,
eat with us, Welcome to town. There's a kind of
hospitality found amongst squatters and punks that I'll never stop appreciating.
When there's not enough to go around, that's when people share.
As far as I can tell, it's part of why
us poor get taken advantage of so much. So I
met a tattooed man in a ghost town, and I
(16:01):
followed him into his house because he knew someone I knew. Sure,
I had to give it some thought, but it felt
a hole of a lot safer than getting in a
car with a stranger. Outside. The house was rustic and
kind of pretty. Inside it was astounding. I've spent plenty
of times in squats in the US, and I thought
I knew what to expect most squats. They range from
(16:24):
people who, honest to God, piss in the fucking corner,
to kind of normal but pretty messy, to artists obviously
live here. Jesus Christ, why is there a life size
hippo made from styrofoam in the living room? But that
house was something else. It was clean, for one thing,
and every wall was painted gray, black or copper. Every
(16:46):
fixture was gold or copper, even if half of them
were spray painted that way. Mirrors were everywhere, letting daylight
reach into the corners.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
Of the house.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
While two full sized couches sat empty, The three people
in the living room were crammed onto a love seat,
lounging atop one another in the way that punks and
puppies do. A man and a woman sat next to
one another while another woman lay across them, tattooing the
back of the man's neck by hand with needle, thread
and ink. May I present to you, Danielle, Vulture said, grandly,
(17:16):
gesturing the Danny Kane. Danielle now though just walked into
town for her very first time. Well damn, the tattoo recipient, said,
Miss Kane herself. That's Thursday and Doomsday. Sitting down proper,
Vulture said, by way of introductions, we call them the
days Freedom. Iowa's only power couple. Come on, do the thing.
(17:37):
He clapped his hands giddy. I don't want to. The
woman said, we gotta do it, the man said. He
wrangled his arms free from underneath a tattooist, then held
out his fists hands together. He had the word Thursday
tattooed on his knuckles, black against his brown skin. The
woman's sighed, then held out her pale hands, palms down
(17:58):
in the same fontday Today's tattoo, but clearly more faded
was the word doomsday. And this is Brynn, Vulture said. Brynn.
The tattooist looked up at me with pale, gray eyes.
An inch thick black line was tattooed from the bangs
of her hair line to the bridge for nose, which
where it met her glasses formed a hypnotizing geometry. She
(18:21):
had the same military style belt I did, the same
extendable baton worn in its holster on one side and
pepper spray on the other that I did. Both weapons
are better than a knife for self defense. Knives are
only good for threatening, not for fighting. Pepper spray can
actually disable someone. Baton can beat someone near to death
without cutting them. Her eyes met. I try not to
(18:43):
read too much into things like that, but her eyes met.
After a brief moment, she went back to tattooing. Thursday,
so it brings you to this shitty little corner of
the world, Bryn asked, without diverting her attention from her work.
It's not shitty, Thursday said. Don't talk. Your neck moves
when you talk. It's kinda shitty. Doomsday said, by the
(19:04):
look on his face, not talking was probably one of
Thursday's least favorite things. All done, Bryn announced, she put
the needle down next to the vial of ink on
a rag on the coffee table and turned Thursday around
so everyone could see. On the back of his neck
was a stylized deer's head, three antlers sprouting from its
crown and running up towards his hairline. I was about
(19:27):
to ask about it, but a sudden fear shut my mouth.
There was something more to freedom than I knew, and
as much as I wanted to feel right at home,
I didn't. Vulture complimented Brynn on her work and Thursday
on his taste, then took a photo of the tattoo
with his phone. Vulture, you want to help me get
started on dinner, Brinne asked. Thursday started clearing up the
(19:49):
tattoo equipment. As soon as I find the right filter
and post this, I can help. I said. I like cooking,
so I followed Brynn to the kitchen to dinner, happy
to see if making food he get my mind off
the worries that raced through me. Vulture straggled behind us,
tapping and swiping at his phone. You definitely don't have
(20:09):
to help cook, Brynn said, I'd enjoy it, I said,
I loved cooking for groups, hated cooking for myself. If
it's just me, I'll eat fucking protein bars for dinner.
Brynn turned on the lights. A series of bright LEDs
wired into a wooden strip screwed into the ceiling. Where
do you get power, I asked solar, Vulture said, still
staring at his phone. Don't use it for much, just
(20:31):
some lights in our phones. He set his phone down
on the counter and started rooting through a produce basket,
procuring an onion, which he set in front of me.
I started dicing it as Brynn ran outside to turn
on the propane for the stove. Where do you get
the gas, I asked, We of Valter demurd We buy
it at Walmart, only place to get pretty much anything
(20:53):
within a two hour drive. I almost asked them where
they got the money, but I figured I knew the answer.
Some combination of crime, seasonal labor, and working remote same
as the rest of us travelers. And the water, I asked,
used a water key? Just turn the city water back on?
He said, you can buy basically anything on the internet.
Got a ship to someone in Chicago. Vulture at this
(21:16):
grand way of gesturing with every word he spoke and
bewing everything around us with meaning. Brynn came back in
whistling and swept up the diced onion into a frying pan.
She was taller than me, muscled, and handsome as hell.
In any other circumstance, i'd probably be in love with
both of them already. Instead, they were a mystery to me,
a mystery I am to solve for Clay's sake and
(21:39):
for my own. The Water's not like fucked up or something, though,
No way, the water's great, Vulture said. I opened my
mouth to ask about the mutated deer, but shouting from
the street cut me off. Brynn set down the spoon,
Vulture set down his knife, and we all met each
other's eyes. The shower was soon a scream. We ran
(22:02):
for the door. Chapter two. I'm gonna do two chapters today.
Everyone is listening. You're gonna get to hear the first
two chapters today. That's man, that's how much I love you.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
Yay. Yeah. I read both of these a while ago,
and I'm eagerly awaiting the third. But I think the
thing that like I found most enticing about this is
like about about the Daniel Kine series in particular, is
this kind of like the It takes the occult, cryptid
(22:37):
sort of milieu that I've always loved and provide It's
the first like procedural I've seen in that kind of
genre that's that's like punk focused. Yeah, and there's a
lot of it fits really well because a lot of
like there's a lot of themes, like early death is
a really big theme just generally in your writing, but
(22:57):
also in this series. And like the what's interesting is
kind of taking that that milieu where usually you've got
like I don't know, a couple of FBI agents or
whatever combating these these horrors that are are kind of inexplicable,
whereas with with with this series, the horror is always
(23:18):
very explicable. The thing that's actually frightening is always the
way human beings treat each other, Like the way people
are pushed out and edged out and crushed in the
margins of society. Like that's that's the actual horror. And
the the monsters, the the occult stuff is you know,
those are those are something a little bit harder to define.
(23:41):
But it's not the as in the real life. As
as in the real world, I should say, like that's
I don't know, uh, is a unique vibe, So.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
No, I appreciate that. Yeah. Two, the sun sat fat
and low on the western horizon at the top of
the street, and the last light of the day lent
everything vivid faded colors, white lambs dappled with red and purple.
(24:15):
Wounds paced a circle around both lanes of the street,
not twenty yards from where we stood. Geese dodged in
and out between them, and a regal goat oversaw the parade.
Each creature had only a gaping wound where its rib
cage had been, Yet they lived. They opened their mouths
to bellow and squawk and bleat, but their organless bodies
(24:37):
let out only strange rasps mixed in with the good
summer scents, early summer flowers, a neighbor's barbecue, a campfire.
Farther off still was the iron of dried blood, the
rod of death, the same as the rabbit I thought
i'd dreamt. A fluttering above me caught my eye on
the power lines. Hundreds of birds without ribcas ages, sparrows
(25:01):
and finches, jays and pigeons, cried dry and unholy, an
angry jury to the trial below. I was transfixed. I
can't say if it was magic or shock. I can't
say the two are wholly distinct. I stood on the
lawn with my jaw hanging low, staring at the undead
spectacle before me. At the center, a man stood bent over,
(25:22):
fighting for breath. He'd been running, he'd been screaming. Hints
of white hair peeked out from beneath his sweater's hood,
and he wore patched black jeans and the look of
a man condemned. For a moment, I thought he was
the master of those animals, some punk rock summoner. But
everywhere he tried to walk, a barnyard demon blocked his path.
(25:43):
He was trying to reach us, Doomsday, he called out,
his voice hoarse from screaming, Tell Doomsday run. I started
toward him. Vulture put his hand on my arm. He
was filming with his phone. We've got to help, I said,
we can't. Bolter said he was near to tears. Bryn
(26:03):
on my other side was as well. They knew this man,
They cared about him. Thursday and Doomsday stepped out the
front door a few moments after the rest of us,
each with an identical handgun. She held her slack at
her side at dead weight. He kept both hands on
the grip, his fingers near the safety. Where the hell
had I found myself? Then I saw the deer, the
(26:27):
blood red deer stalk down the hill, the last remnants
of the sun at his back as three antlers and
sharp silhouette. The beasts parted for their master, and the
old man straightened up turned to meet his fate. The
creature reared on to his back legs and kicked the
man in the chest. His ribs broke loud like gunshot.
(26:47):
My ears rang from the blow. The man collapsed without
a sound, and the deer reached his muzzle into his
chest and tore out his heart. If I'd had a car,
I could have run. I could have safe somewhere, anywhere
if I'd had a car. The highway was too far
to run, and I had visions of that monstrous deer
chasing me over the river through the forest, hoofs in
(27:10):
my back, antlers in my chest, my heart held aloft
above my dying eyes. So I didn't run. I stood
in company with Clay's friends, near to paralyzed with fear.
The Sun's almost gone. Vulture whispered, it's powerless at night.
The beasts parted once more, and the hill walked off
(27:31):
down the hill, down toward the river and out of sight.
The animals plodded slowly after the birds were still just
then and the man was still forever. What the ever
loving fuck? I asked? I was sweating. We were back
in the living room, but Doomsday was the only one sitting.
I couldn't figure out if I felt safer near the
(27:52):
door and away from these people, or far from it
and away from the corpse that lay under a sheet
on the patio. Vulture had left the stranger shovels over
their shoulders to dig the man's grave. A small crowd
was gathering on the patio, well wishers, investigators, the curious.
No one told me, and I couldn't figure it out.
Brynn put her hand on my shoulder blade. I recoiled
(28:16):
from her touch. The creature's name is Ulixie, Doomsday said,
what the ever loving fuck? You knew Clay? You knew
his magic? Yeah, I mean he read taro and shit.
Sometimes he'd wave his hands around, say a couple words
about chaos and endless spirits to like, get her head
straight before we do something stupid or dangerous. You've never
(28:36):
seen one of the endless spirits. No, I hadn't seen
one of the endless spirits because the endless spirits were
fucking metaphors. All right, they're not Doomsday, said, no shit.
I started tapping the heel of my palm on my
outer thigh obsessively. It wasn't a nervous habit I'd ever
had before. I'd probably never been so nervous. We burned
(28:57):
the hell out of dinner. But Thursday came in with
cups on a tarnish silver platter, offered me a cup.
I knocked it out of his hand. The porcelain hit
the wooden floor and rolled away. If only the floor
had been cement, it would have smashed like it should have.
After all these years I'd lived outside of polite society,
I'd finally fallen through the looking glass. I know you're
(29:20):
freaked out, Thursday said, I would be too, But right
now this can't be about you. Right now, we've got
to figure some shit out. No Doomsday, said to her lover.
It's all right. The words will hold. The house is safe.
I'm safe. The plush couch welcomed me into its embrace.
Brynn sat next to me and I leaned against her.
(29:43):
I let my nervous energy flow out of me into
the ground, like Clay had taught me. I let a
stranger support me. The people in the house, they probably
weren't going to hurt me. That's about all I could
ever be sure about anyone. Doomsday met my eyes. She
was a severe, powerful woman, heavy set, commanding and beautiful,
(30:03):
not without a certain warmth, a certain flicker of something
carrying at the edge of her eyes. The deer's name
is Eulixe, she told me again, an endless spirit, a demon,
a creature of vengeance that walks these woods, swims in
this river, watches this town. He's been a guardian spirit
until tonight. You worship it, I said. It wasn't a question.
(30:27):
I'd say people revere him. There's no worship why, Doomsday
sipped her tea. We summoned him to kill a man
last year on Solstice, to kill a man who'd made
himself king. We summoned him to keep anyone from following
in that man's footsteps. Desmond Brynn said. There were about
(30:47):
thirty people who moved here at the start, Doomsday said
two years ago, in early spring. Clay was one of them.
After a couple of months, when it looked like the
place wasn't about to be cleared out by cops, word
went around. More of us showed up, mostly from Chicago.
It was hard living, and we were cold and hungry
and overworked. For some people it was a free place
(31:08):
to live. Other people a place where anarchist ideals could
be put into practice. Some of us came for our
own reasons. It worked all right until Desmond motherfucker managed
to take power. Thursday said. No one was supposed to
be able to do that, that was the whole point.
But I don't know. He got himself running the security Council,
(31:28):
and he got himself running in just about everything. He
did some good, scared off some dudes who were giving
us shit, but he just power man power just fucked
up things to people. A tracks fucked up people in
the first place. So you killed him, I asked, No,
we didn't kill him, Thursday said. Then he looked introspective.
Well eventually, yeah, but only after it got all animal
(31:51):
farm up in here and Desmond fucking beat this kid
to death right there on the bridge in front of
ten people, caved in his skull, tossed the body into
the river. Ben the nicest little crust lord you ever
would have met, Vulture said. He slid the door shut
behind himself and started to strip off his grave soiled clothes.
You have any idea how hard it is to get
(32:12):
friend's body out of a river. We didn't know what
to do, Doomsday said. There weren't enough of us to
kick him out. He had too much sway. We could
have killed him, but it would have meant civil war.
We were going to leave. Thursday said, about half the
town was going to leave. Desmond started saying shit about
how we couldn't like if we left. We couldn't be
trusted because we knew too much. If we left, he
(32:35):
quote couldn't guarantee our safety. Clay was the one who
talked to us out of assassination, Doomsday said. Thursday and
I were on our way out the door, guns in hand,
before the first light of morning of summer solstice, almost
a year ago.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
Now.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
Clay caught up with us because he was gathering up
the only people in town crazy enough to believe in
his magic. Rebecca. She was the only other real witch.
The man you saw die, his name was Anchor. The
three of them came for me in that early morning fog.
We went down to the river right under the bridge.
We each had a roll. I was the innocent. They
(33:12):
blindfolded me. Clay and Rebecca set their peace anchor, drew
blood up from his palm, let it run into the
river and on to the stone. When the solstice sun rose,
it drew Eulixe into the world. A spirit that turns
the predator into the prey. Eulxe hunts the vengeful, the hateful.
As Clay put it, Eulxe hunts those who wield power
(33:34):
over others. I wouldn't believed a word that she was
saying had I heard it the night before. As she spoke,
her voice fell in and out of confidence. Likely the
times she'd told the story before, it had been heroic.
Desmond and his crew tried to interrupt us. One of
his friends ripped my blindfold off, just in time for
me to watch Eulxe come out of the water. He
(33:56):
staggered like a new born colt, then looked hard at Desmond.
Desmond stumbled back, tripped, and Eulixe caught him by the throat,
dragged him over to the river's edge and held his
face beneath the water, ripped open his rib cage, tore
out his heart. Desmond's crew fucked off. Eulixe stayed damn,
(34:17):
I said, polysyllabic expression was sort of beyond me. So yeah,
welcome to Freedom, Iowa. For the past year, we've had
this benevolent, murderous spirit watching over us, which is weird,
but it's gone fine, which brings us to tonight. Thursday said,
which brings us to tonight Doomsday agreed. The last thing
(34:41):
Clay said to me when I dropped him off at
a truck stop about two months back was that Eulixe
would turn on his summoners. I didn't really believe him,
not until tonight. There was a rap on the sliding
door and I jolted Vulture, slid open the door and
had a brief conversation with someone. They're ready, I guess,
he reported, then slipped outside. The days stood up, strained
(35:04):
each other's collars and hair, then went out the door. Well,
Brent said, I suppose we're going to a funeral. Duh,
there's really a cliffhanger, but you know that's what we got.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
Yeah. I I I find the uh, the the idea
you're playing with here particularly compelling because it's it's such
a again, it's such like a The actual conflict here
is so grounded, like a significant chunk of our audience
have have dealt with the problem of like self declared
(35:42):
security taking power and radical activists. Like it's the it's
like the easiest way to tell if somebody is a problem,
if they've like appointed themselves security and sort of this. Uh,
but also like when you're the the the difficulty is
like it's a double edged knife, right because not only
(36:05):
is there the problem of like people putting themselves in
a position of power, but when you start talking about like, well,
how do we get someone out of power, how do
we like remove the like, well, that's the effectively the
same problem, just a different shade of it, and it
can go it's the same dark places again. I just
love I love the I love that all of the
(36:26):
the actual like the quote unquote monster in this isn't
isn't the monster I can definitely see. You know, we
talk when we hang out, we talk a lot about Tolkien,
and I can see I can even see a bit
of Toll Like I can see the Tolkien in this story, right,
because like, no matter how how kind of like grand
the magic we're talking about here, the actual, the actual
(36:52):
conflict is always power and how to use it and
how it gets used, whether or not it ever can
be Uh anyway, I don't know. I like your stories, Margaret.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
Thanks.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
Well, if people want to hear part two, chapters three
and four, they're gonna have to wait a whole last week.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
Isn't that just cruel you assholes? How dare you wait? Yes?
Speaker 2 (37:17):
Yeah, but we'll be back next Sunday for the second
episode of the It could Happen Here book Club? Or
is it the Cool Zone book Club?
Speaker 1 (37:26):
What is this called the Cool Zone book Club? That
is that is your job to figure out?
Speaker 2 (37:32):
All right, it's the Cool Zone book Club.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
Yeah, it rolls off, happens to your ear earbuds. So
check back in next week where we will uh, we'll
be doing more punk X files. I will say I
think modern David Duchovny would be great, uh in as
as an elder punk in the Danielle Kane series one
stick him in there.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
One one like Wonderful Brief Week Holly with director who's
like movies I've seen and shit was like messaging me
on Twitter looking into adapting this and it didn't end
up going forward. But I had this moment where I
was like, I want to see this show so badly.
Speaker 1 (38:13):
Yeah, well I also you could, you could, You could
absolutely have Molder in this, just like Molder as an adult,
when he's when his life has finally collapsed around him,
just like living in his squat, masturbating, he was studying
pornography the way he always did on this show, just
like this week. Oh yeah, that guy moved in here
like a couple of years ago, and he's like he's
(38:35):
unsettling his hell, but he seems like he might be
the guy to go to about this monster.
Speaker 2 (38:39):
Situationally, everyone kind of puts up with him, even though
like he's not quite sure why he's there. They're not
quite sure.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
Why he's there. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
Yeah, well, if you're listening a different Hollywood director than
the last one who wasn't able to uh, you know,
you can reach me, but everyone else can reach me. Bye.
Waiting a week, that's not really reaching me. That's just waiting.
That's what you can do.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
Yeah, so wait,
All Zone Media. Hey everyone, it is it could happen
here a podcast about things falling apart, about a little
thing we like to call the crumbles, which is more
or less the state of affairs we're all living in
right now. You know, hottest year on record, you know,
unprecedented wildfires, smoke blanketing half the country, all that good jazz.
(00:26):
It gets one in the mood for stories and not
necessarily you know, happy stories, but not necessarily sad ones either.
You know, this is normally a daily news podcast focused
on collapse and things falling apart, but here at cool
Zone Media, a lot of us are big fans of fiction,
(00:46):
particularly speculative science fiction, often with a dystopian bent to it.
I've written a book in that theme. And then Margaret Kiljoy,
host of cool People who did cool stuff, and one
of one of our favorite people is an author of
numerous short stories, novels, novellas, all focusing on kind of
(01:09):
at least elements of the feeling of collapse. And so Margaret,
you know, you came to us a while ago. Andre,
like you know it would be neat, is starting a
literary magazine that's focused on the same kind of stuff
that we cover from a news basis in our daily
show because basically fiction is has collapsed as a way
(01:33):
for people to make a living, but somehow we have not.
So we're trying to sneak our way into paying people
for writing fiction. And that'll work as long as you
people listen. Margaret, that's that's what I got for an intro?
How was that? Is that what you hoped for? Right? For?
Speaker 2 (01:49):
No, that's good. That puts it more clearly than I would.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
That's good.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
We're taking over Sundays because there really wasn't anything to
take over because there wasn't anything.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
We weren't doing any Sunday content. Yeah, that's right. Now
it's really a daily show bitches.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Yeah, because no one there is no no one goes
to church anymore. But we suddenly still have Sunday free,
and so we figured we can sneak into Sundays.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Yeah. Are we saying that this is church for you
now that we are your God? Yes? Essentially?
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Yeah? Why not? Yeah, this story does have things that
are like gods in it.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Well, the first thing that we're going to do, the
first several episodes are going to be one of my novellas.
The general format is going to be that I'm going
to have authors on to read me stories. But I
thought that I would start with one of my own
and bring Robert on to read Robert a story.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
I love stories.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
The first story that we're going to read is a
novella that I wrote called The Lamble Slaughter of the Lion.
It was originally published by tour dot com and you
can read it in paper form if you want, or
you can listen to it here.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Margaret, what separates legally a novel from a novella.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
It's a length thing. It's a novellas are short novels.
It goes flash fiction, short story, novelette, novella, novel, and honestly,
usually people just use the word counts of various awards
in order to determine the categorization of these things.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
That makes sense.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
And from that point of view, oh, I don't have
it in front of me, but I think a novella
starts at about seventeen thousand words and runs up to
about forty thousand words and then novel takes over. And
this is at least I think for the Hugo Awards,
which this is not a winner of, but it is
the categorization that people use. I like writing avellas I
write short by default anyway, And I don't know whether
(03:59):
it's undiagnosed ADHD or what.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
I think it's just a matter of skill because and
here's the thing, a lot of people who aren't in
the viz may know, it's harder to write good short
fiction than good long fiction. At least that's my opinion,
as it's the same reason why one of the things
that was neat for a while about Twitter, It hasn't
been this way for a minute, but back when there
(04:24):
was an actual cap on how much you could post,
there was a degree to which. One of the reasons
writers liked it a lot, especially joke writers, is it
kind of forced brevity, and like brevity is the soul
of wit, you know. That's the thing. I don't know.
It's silly to actually say like that short novels are
harder than long novels, But as a general rule, I
(04:45):
think the most impactful fiction I read tends to be
short fiction, even though I prefer long fiction because it
gives me something to do with my time. But like
when I think about stuff that's like hit me, like
in the gut, real hard. It's usually been short fiction.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Yeah, no, that makes sense to me. I remember in
high school someone told me the like cliche that every
novelist is a failed short story writer, and every short
story writer is a failed poet. Yeah, and so I
guess by that standards, I'm a failed poet. But don't worry.
I'm not subjecting you to that. I'm only subjecting you
to my fiction.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
That's right, that's right. I will subject you guys to
my poetry one of these days. But uh no, I won't.
I didn't have a joke there. I was thinking I
was the figure in one, but it turns out I
don't have one. So let's just do the story, all right.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
So this book is called The Lamble Slaughter the Lion.
It's the first book in the Danielle Kine series, which
currently only has two books in it. But we'll see
about me trying to solve that chapter one. Sometimes you
have to pull a knife. It's not a good thing.
I don't enjoy it. Some times you've just got to
(06:00):
get a knife in your hands and make it clear
which way the stabby end is pointing. Let me out here,
I'd said, before the knife got involved. It hadn't been
a question. Men always assumed that declarative statements like that
are questions. This is a ghost town, he said. I
hadn't caught his name. He'd been nice enough to pick
me up pitch hiking in the middle of nowhere, Iowa,
but he wasn't nice enough to let me out where
(06:22):
I wanted. That's all right, I said, just let me out.
There'll be someplace better, a wal Mart or something. I'll
let you out there. Let me out here. I can't
just let you out in the middle of nowhere, not
by yourself. It isn't safe, he said it without a
trace of irony. He locked the doors. That's when the
knife got involved. I slid it out from my Jean's pocket,
(06:45):
clicked it open. Pulling a knife means going double or nothing.
I was either going to get out of the situation
or the situation was about to get a lot worse. Jesus,
he said. He pulled over. I unlocked my door, grabbed
my pack, and hit the gravel before he came to
a complete stop. Fucking bitch. I flipped off his car
as he drove away, But at least he was driving away.
(07:07):
The worst of it was he'd probably thought he was
just taking care of me, that he was a nice guy.
I hoped bad things were going to happen to him,
and soon ten years of putting up with shit like
that from drivers, it was getting old. Hell, at twenty eight,
I was getting old. Ten years ago, I'd talked to
drivers about anything and loved them for it. I loved
(07:27):
the nice ones for their kindness. I love the crazies
for their stories. And sure I hated the racist pieces
of shit, but if nothing else, I got to feel
like I had the pulse of this racist piece of
shit country. But a decade is an awful long time,
and whatever shine I'd found on the shit that his
hitchhiking had long since faded. Still it got me where
I wanted to go. The town's welcome sign had been
(07:50):
painted over. Don't know what it used to say, but now,
in clean, stenciled letters, it said Freedom, Iowa City Limits, unincorporated,
an entire town, abandoned by a dead economy and occupied
by squatters and activists and anarchists. It was the last
place Clay had lived, the last place he'd spent much
(08:11):
time before he'd found his way west, and his hand
had shown his razor the way to his throat. No
warning signs, no cries for help. I had a lot
of questions. If there were answers, I might find them
in Freedom, Iowa. I shouldered my pack and clipped the
waistbelt shut. It had been Clay's pack. I had his
suicide note folded up in the smallest pocket. The road
(08:33):
into town was two lanes that led away from the highway,
paved with pale patched asphalt. The trees beside it climbed
toward the sky, and I walked in the double yellow
with something of a spring to my step. After a
hundred yards and a couple turns, when the trees were
getting thick enough to cast the whole of the road
into shadow, I saw a deer on the shoulder ahead,
(08:55):
rooting at something on the pavement. The beast was crimson red,
blood red. I didn't even know deer came in that color.
I crossed to the far side of the street so
I wouldn't disturb him, but I couldn't help staring. A
rabbit was dead on the ground beneath him, its belly up,
its rib cage splayed open. The deer looked up at me,
(09:17):
then his red muzzle dripping red blood. On the right
side of his head, he bore an antler. On the
left side of his head, he bore two Jesus. I said,
I kept walking, because what else do you do? He
watched me until I was around the next bend, and
I couldn't help feeling his gaze on my back. The
(09:37):
only sounds in the air were birds and the faint
white noise of a nearby river, and wild flowers were
in bloom on the forest floor. Another quarter mile and
I stepped out of the woods and saw the town
on the far bank of a small, slow moving river.
Half a hundred houses were set into the hillside along
a single winding street. A few old cars were part
(10:00):
along the curb and in driveways, but I couldn't get
a gauge on whether they were in use or abandoned.
A two lane bridge spanned the river. Clay had talked
about the place like it was paradise. I crossed over,
pausing to look down over the guard rail at the
water thirty feet below as it tumbled and tore its
way over river rock. Just at the other end of
(10:20):
the bridge, a boarded up gas station was covered in
street art as good as any I'd seen in Oakland.
It was a quarter mile farther up the hill to
the first houses, and most were overgrown, more than a
few with caved in roofs. Others looked haphazardly maintained. I
walked into town, but I didn't see any signs of life,
(10:40):
no smoke or lights or motion. No one was out
on the street or sitting on their porches. Maybe everyone
had left when Clay had. Maybe the water was poisoned
the same as it seemed to be in half of
Middle America, and singing shit like that fucked up mutated
deer with three antlers made everyone realize it wasn't safe
to stick around. The first five or six houses I
(11:03):
passed were split levels set into the hill. Welded rebar
statues populated one front lawn, a three antler deer amongst
other woodland and farmyard animals. Even the statue seemed to
bore into me with its stare, and the damn thing
didn't even have eyes. The next house, alone on its block,
was an old colonial. It was handsome, its wood siding
(11:26):
painted dark. Its circular attic window is an eye, casting
its longing gaze out over the river.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
And Iowa.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
I walked up the cement steps to a large wooden
patio on the side of the house and peered in
through the sliding door. But it was darker inside than outside,
and I only saw my own straggly short hair reflected
and a silhouette in the glass. I sat down on
the porch chair and leaned back to ponder the empty
town and my lack of luck. I had no idea
(11:56):
how to find what I wanted to find. I had
come here because I needed motion. Without motion, there was
nothing without motion, I was probably as dead as clay.
I kicked back in the chair, put my feet up
on the table, and looked out over the town. I'd
make it my kingdom for the day, I decided, and
hit the road again tomorrow. I had canned food enough
(12:18):
to see me through at least three meals, and if
I got desperate, I had a jar of peanut butter
somewhere in my bag that would keep me alive for days.
I took out my phone and headphones, put on black metal,
and dozed off. I like the tiny little dreams I
get when I sleep. In the afternoon that day, I
was a very young goblin riding this bronosaurus like thing,
(12:41):
and I was in love with a human boy, and
I was afraid he'd find out I was a goblin.
When I'm awake, I'm happy sometimes, but I don't know
that I'm ever as happy awake as I am when
I'm dreaming. Awake, I've got all this nostalgia, this feeling
that I'm separated from something I can smell but can't touch.
I get these sudden, un arable realizations that I should
(13:01):
have been more present during all those moments in my life,
that I should have taken the time to be like,
oh shit, man, this is my life and it's fucking awesome.
Sometimes dreaming I just swim in the joy and the
intensity and the nowness of life. Late in the afternoon,
I heard rustling and opened my eyes. Halfway on the
(13:22):
railing in front of me, a rabbit cleaned its paws.
I watched it, drowsy. It turned toward me, and its
chest was a raw red wound, its rib cage and
organs gone. It smelled like death and blood, and I
don't usually smell much in my dreams. It hopped away,
and I presumed it a nightmare and fell back asleep.
(13:46):
Get your feet off the table. What I asked, startled awake,
ripping out my earbuds. Can't have dirty boots on the table,
he said. I got my feet back on the porch
and turned around. A gangly, handsome fellow was looking at
me with a brown fist on his hip and a
weird sort of smile hovering on his face. His septum
was pierced. One side of his head was shaved. The
(14:08):
rest of his hair was thick black curls. His short
dress was clean, faded black, stitched up in a few
places with dental floss. He was heavily tattooed, mostly black.
Work Behind him, the sliding glass door was open. Obviously
I hadn't heard him walk out. And who are you,
he asked Danielle, I said. He was looking me over,
(14:32):
his head cocked to the side, trying to make up
his mind about something. I uh, I didn't know anyone
lived here. I told him, well, he said, someone does.
There's at least four or five spots left if you
want your own place, more than that too, if you
know how to patch a roof. He stared at me
as I tried to process this information. Oh, you're new,
(14:53):
like new, new, like don't know anything new. I just
got here, I said, I was thinking maybe there wasn't
anyone left. I'm vulture. He said, what pronouns do you prefer?
She I said, I use He told me. I nodded, well, Danielle.
I came outside because there was a strange woman sleeping
on her porch. Everyone else there inside wondering who the
(15:17):
hell you are. He started drumming his fingers on his chin. Wade,
what's your last name, Cain. It wasn't my legal name,
but it was my punk name. You're Danny Kine. His
whole body loosened up and a smile exploded across his face.
I had rather Danielle than Danny, I said. I hadn't
let anyone but Clay called me Danny. In years, Clay
(15:39):
talked about you. I don't know. Maybe every day, come inside,
eat with us, Welcome to town. There's a kind of
hospitality found amongst squatters and punks that I'll never stop appreciating.
When there's not enough to go around, that's when people share.
As far as I can tell, it's part of why
us poor get taken advantage of so much. So I
met a tattooed man in a ghost town, and I
(16:01):
followed him into his house because he knew someone I knew. Sure,
I had to give it some thought, but it felt
a hole of a lot safer than getting in a
car with a stranger. Outside. The house was rustic and
kind of pretty. Inside it was astounding. I've spent plenty
of times in squats in the US, and I thought
I knew what to expect most squats. They range from
(16:24):
people who, honest to God, piss in the fucking corner,
to kind of normal but pretty messy, to artists obviously
live here. Jesus Christ, why is there a life size
hippo made from styrofoam in the living room? But that
house was something else. It was clean, for one thing,
and every wall was painted gray, black or copper. Every
(16:46):
fixture was gold or copper, even if half of them
were spray painted that way. Mirrors were everywhere, letting daylight
reach into the corners.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
Of the house.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
While two full sized couches sat empty, The three people
in the living room were crammed onto a love seat,
lounging atop one another in the way that punks and
puppies do. A man and a woman sat next to
one another while another woman lay across them, tattooing the
back of the man's neck by hand with needle, thread
and ink. May I present to you, Danielle, Vulture said, grandly,
(17:16):
gesturing the Danny Kane. Danielle now though just walked into
town for her very first time. Well damn, the tattoo recipient, said,
Miss Kane herself. That's Thursday and Doomsday. Sitting down proper,
Vulture said, by way of introductions, we call them the
days Freedom. Iowa's only power couple. Come on, do the thing.
(17:37):
He clapped his hands giddy. I don't want to. The
woman said, we gotta do it, the man said. He
wrangled his arms free from underneath a tattooist, then held
out his fists hands together. He had the word Thursday
tattooed on his knuckles, black against his brown skin. The
woman's sighed, then held out her pale hands, palms down
(17:58):
in the same fontday Today's tattoo, but clearly more faded
was the word doomsday. And this is Brynn, Vulture said. Brynn.
The tattooist looked up at me with pale, gray eyes.
An inch thick black line was tattooed from the bangs
of her hair line to the bridge for nose, which
where it met her glasses formed a hypnotizing geometry. She
(18:21):
had the same military style belt I did, the same
extendable baton worn in its holster on one side and
pepper spray on the other that I did. Both weapons
are better than a knife for self defense. Knives are
only good for threatening, not for fighting. Pepper spray can
actually disable someone. Baton can beat someone near to death
without cutting them. Her eyes met. I try not to
(18:43):
read too much into things like that, but her eyes met.
After a brief moment, she went back to tattooing. Thursday,
so it brings you to this shitty little corner of
the world, Bryn asked, without diverting her attention from her work.
It's not shitty, Thursday said. Don't talk. Your neck moves
when you talk. It's kinda shitty. Doomsday said, by the
(19:04):
look on his face, not talking was probably one of
Thursday's least favorite things. All done, Bryn announced, she put
the needle down next to the vial of ink on
a rag on the coffee table and turned Thursday around
so everyone could see. On the back of his neck
was a stylized deer's head, three antlers sprouting from its
crown and running up towards his hairline. I was about
(19:27):
to ask about it, but a sudden fear shut my mouth.
There was something more to freedom than I knew, and
as much as I wanted to feel right at home,
I didn't. Vulture complimented Brynn on her work and Thursday
on his taste, then took a photo of the tattoo
with his phone. Vulture, you want to help me get
started on dinner, Brinne asked. Thursday started clearing up the
(19:49):
tattoo equipment. As soon as I find the right filter
and post this, I can help. I said. I like cooking,
so I followed Brynn to the kitchen to dinner, happy
to see if making food he get my mind off
the worries that raced through me. Vulture straggled behind us,
tapping and swiping at his phone. You definitely don't have
(20:09):
to help cook, Brynn said, I'd enjoy it, I said,
I loved cooking for groups, hated cooking for myself. If
it's just me, I'll eat fucking protein bars for dinner.
Brynn turned on the lights. A series of bright LEDs
wired into a wooden strip screwed into the ceiling. Where
do you get power, I asked solar, Vulture said, still
staring at his phone. Don't use it for much, just
(20:31):
some lights in our phones. He set his phone down
on the counter and started rooting through a produce basket,
procuring an onion, which he set in front of me.
I started dicing it as Brynn ran outside to turn
on the propane for the stove. Where do you get
the gas, I asked, We of Valter demurd We buy
it at Walmart, only place to get pretty much anything
(20:53):
within a two hour drive. I almost asked them where
they got the money, but I figured I knew the answer.
Some combination of crime, seasonal labor, and working remote same
as the rest of us travelers. And the water, I asked,
used a water key? Just turn the city water back on?
He said, you can buy basically anything on the internet.
Got a ship to someone in Chicago. Vulture at this
(21:16):
grand way of gesturing with every word he spoke and
bewing everything around us with meaning. Brynn came back in
whistling and swept up the diced onion into a frying pan.
She was taller than me, muscled, and handsome as hell.
In any other circumstance, i'd probably be in love with
both of them already. Instead, they were a mystery to me,
a mystery I am to solve for Clay's sake and
(21:39):
for my own. The Water's not like fucked up or something, though,
No way, the water's great, Vulture said. I opened my
mouth to ask about the mutated deer, but shouting from
the street cut me off. Brynn set down the spoon,
Vulture set down his knife, and we all met each
other's eyes. The shower was soon a scream. We ran
(22:02):
for the door. Chapter two. I'm gonna do two chapters today.
Everyone is listening. You're gonna get to hear the first
two chapters today. That's man, that's how much I love you.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
Yay. Yeah. I read both of these a while ago,
and I'm eagerly awaiting the third. But I think the
thing that like I found most enticing about this is
like about about the Daniel Kine series in particular, is
this kind of like the It takes the occult, cryptid
(22:37):
sort of milieu that I've always loved and provide It's
the first like procedural I've seen in that kind of
genre that's that's like punk focused. Yeah, and there's a
lot of it fits really well because a lot of
like there's a lot of themes, like early death is
a really big theme just generally in your writing, but
(22:57):
also in this series. And like the what's interesting is
kind of taking that that milieu where usually you've got
like I don't know, a couple of FBI agents or
whatever combating these these horrors that are are kind of inexplicable,
whereas with with with this series, the horror is always
(23:18):
very explicable. The thing that's actually frightening is always the
way human beings treat each other, Like the way people
are pushed out and edged out and crushed in the
margins of society. Like that's that's the actual horror. And
the the monsters, the the occult stuff is you know,
those are those are something a little bit harder to define.
(23:41):
But it's not the as in the real life. As
as in the real world, I should say, like that's
I don't know, uh, is a unique vibe, So.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
No, I appreciate that. Yeah. Two, the sun sat fat
and low on the western horizon at the top of
the street, and the last light of the day lent
everything vivid faded colors, white lambs dappled with red and purple.
(24:15):
Wounds paced a circle around both lanes of the street,
not twenty yards from where we stood. Geese dodged in
and out between them, and a regal goat oversaw the parade.
Each creature had only a gaping wound where its rib
cage had been, Yet they lived. They opened their mouths
to bellow and squawk and bleat, but their organless bodies
(24:37):
let out only strange rasps mixed in with the good
summer scents, early summer flowers, a neighbor's barbecue, a campfire.
Farther off still was the iron of dried blood, the
rod of death, the same as the rabbit I thought
i'd dreamt. A fluttering above me caught my eye on
the power lines. Hundreds of birds without ribcas ages, sparrows
(25:01):
and finches, jays and pigeons, cried dry and unholy, an
angry jury to the trial below. I was transfixed. I
can't say if it was magic or shock. I can't
say the two are wholly distinct. I stood on the
lawn with my jaw hanging low, staring at the undead
spectacle before me. At the center, a man stood bent over,
(25:22):
fighting for breath. He'd been running, he'd been screaming. Hints
of white hair peeked out from beneath his sweater's hood,
and he wore patched black jeans and the look of
a man condemned. For a moment, I thought he was
the master of those animals, some punk rock summoner. But
everywhere he tried to walk, a barnyard demon blocked his path.
(25:43):
He was trying to reach us, Doomsday, he called out,
his voice hoarse from screaming, Tell Doomsday run. I started
toward him. Vulture put his hand on my arm. He
was filming with his phone. We've got to help, I said,
we can't. Bolter said he was near to tears. Bryn
(26:03):
on my other side was as well. They knew this man,
They cared about him. Thursday and Doomsday stepped out the
front door a few moments after the rest of us,
each with an identical handgun. She held her slack at
her side at dead weight. He kept both hands on
the grip, his fingers near the safety. Where the hell
had I found myself? Then I saw the deer, the
(26:27):
blood red deer stalk down the hill, the last remnants
of the sun at his back as three antlers and
sharp silhouette. The beasts parted for their master, and the
old man straightened up turned to meet his fate. The
creature reared on to his back legs and kicked the
man in the chest. His ribs broke loud like gunshot.
(26:47):
My ears rang from the blow. The man collapsed without
a sound, and the deer reached his muzzle into his
chest and tore out his heart. If I'd had a car,
I could have run. I could have safe somewhere, anywhere
if I'd had a car. The highway was too far
to run, and I had visions of that monstrous deer
chasing me over the river through the forest, hoofs in
(27:10):
my back, antlers in my chest, my heart held aloft
above my dying eyes. So I didn't run. I stood
in company with Clay's friends, near to paralyzed with fear.
The Sun's almost gone. Vulture whispered, it's powerless at night.
The beasts parted once more, and the hill walked off
(27:31):
down the hill, down toward the river and out of sight.
The animals plodded slowly after the birds were still just
then and the man was still forever. What the ever
loving fuck? I asked? I was sweating. We were back
in the living room, but Doomsday was the only one sitting.
I couldn't figure out if I felt safer near the
(27:52):
door and away from these people, or far from it
and away from the corpse that lay under a sheet
on the patio. Vulture had left the stranger shovels over
their shoulders to dig the man's grave. A small crowd
was gathering on the patio, well wishers, investigators, the curious.
No one told me, and I couldn't figure it out.
Brynn put her hand on my shoulder blade. I recoiled
(28:16):
from her touch. The creature's name is Ulixie, Doomsday said,
what the ever loving fuck? You knew Clay? You knew
his magic? Yeah, I mean he read taro and shit.
Sometimes he'd wave his hands around, say a couple words
about chaos and endless spirits to like, get her head
straight before we do something stupid or dangerous. You've never
(28:36):
seen one of the endless spirits. No, I hadn't seen
one of the endless spirits because the endless spirits were
fucking metaphors. All right, they're not Doomsday, said, no shit.
I started tapping the heel of my palm on my
outer thigh obsessively. It wasn't a nervous habit I'd ever
had before. I'd probably never been so nervous. We burned
(28:57):
the hell out of dinner. But Thursday came in with
cups on a tarnish silver platter, offered me a cup.
I knocked it out of his hand. The porcelain hit
the wooden floor and rolled away. If only the floor
had been cement, it would have smashed like it should have.
After all these years I'd lived outside of polite society,
I'd finally fallen through the looking glass. I know you're
(29:20):
freaked out, Thursday said, I would be too, But right
now this can't be about you. Right now, we've got
to figure some shit out. No Doomsday, said to her lover.
It's all right. The words will hold. The house is safe.
I'm safe. The plush couch welcomed me into its embrace.
Brynn sat next to me and I leaned against her.
(29:43):
I let my nervous energy flow out of me into
the ground, like Clay had taught me. I let a
stranger support me. The people in the house, they probably
weren't going to hurt me. That's about all I could
ever be sure about anyone. Doomsday met my eyes. She
was a severe, powerful woman, heavy set, commanding and beautiful,
(30:03):
not without a certain warmth, a certain flicker of something
carrying at the edge of her eyes. The deer's name
is Eulixe, she told me again, an endless spirit, a demon,
a creature of vengeance that walks these woods, swims in
this river, watches this town. He's been a guardian spirit
until tonight. You worship it, I said. It wasn't a question.
(30:27):
I'd say people revere him. There's no worship why, Doomsday
sipped her tea. We summoned him to kill a man
last year on Solstice, to kill a man who'd made
himself king. We summoned him to keep anyone from following
in that man's footsteps. Desmond Brynn said. There were about
(30:47):
thirty people who moved here at the start, Doomsday said
two years ago, in early spring. Clay was one of them.
After a couple of months, when it looked like the
place wasn't about to be cleared out by cops, word
went around. More of us showed up, mostly from Chicago.
It was hard living, and we were cold and hungry
and overworked. For some people it was a free place
(31:08):
to live. Other people a place where anarchist ideals could
be put into practice. Some of us came for our
own reasons. It worked all right until Desmond motherfucker managed
to take power. Thursday said. No one was supposed to
be able to do that, that was the whole point.
But I don't know. He got himself running the security Council,
(31:28):
and he got himself running in just about everything. He
did some good, scared off some dudes who were giving
us shit, but he just power man power just fucked
up things to people. A tracks fucked up people in
the first place. So you killed him, I asked, No,
we didn't kill him, Thursday said. Then he looked introspective.
Well eventually, yeah, but only after it got all animal
(31:51):
farm up in here and Desmond fucking beat this kid
to death right there on the bridge in front of
ten people, caved in his skull, tossed the body into
the river. Ben the nicest little crust lord you ever
would have met, Vulture said. He slid the door shut
behind himself and started to strip off his grave soiled clothes.
You have any idea how hard it is to get
(32:12):
friend's body out of a river. We didn't know what
to do, Doomsday said. There weren't enough of us to
kick him out. He had too much sway. We could
have killed him, but it would have meant civil war.
We were going to leave. Thursday said, about half the
town was going to leave. Desmond started saying shit about
how we couldn't like if we left. We couldn't be
trusted because we knew too much. If we left, he
(32:35):
quote couldn't guarantee our safety. Clay was the one who
talked to us out of assassination, Doomsday said. Thursday and
I were on our way out the door, guns in hand,
before the first light of morning of summer solstice, almost
a year ago.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
Now.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
Clay caught up with us because he was gathering up
the only people in town crazy enough to believe in
his magic. Rebecca. She was the only other real witch.
The man you saw die, his name was Anchor. The
three of them came for me in that early morning fog.
We went down to the river right under the bridge.
We each had a roll. I was the innocent. They
(33:12):
blindfolded me. Clay and Rebecca set their peace anchor, drew
blood up from his palm, let it run into the
river and on to the stone. When the solstice sun rose,
it drew Eulixe into the world. A spirit that turns
the predator into the prey. Eulxe hunts the vengeful, the hateful.
As Clay put it, Eulxe hunts those who wield power
(33:34):
over others. I wouldn't believed a word that she was
saying had I heard it the night before. As she spoke,
her voice fell in and out of confidence. Likely the
times she'd told the story before, it had been heroic.
Desmond and his crew tried to interrupt us. One of
his friends ripped my blindfold off, just in time for
me to watch Eulxe come out of the water. He
(33:56):
staggered like a new born colt, then looked hard at Desmond.
Desmond stumbled back, tripped, and Eulixe caught him by the throat,
dragged him over to the river's edge and held his
face beneath the water, ripped open his rib cage, tore
out his heart. Desmond's crew fucked off. Eulixe stayed damn,
(34:17):
I said, polysyllabic expression was sort of beyond me. So yeah,
welcome to Freedom, Iowa. For the past year, we've had
this benevolent, murderous spirit watching over us, which is weird,
but it's gone fine, which brings us to tonight. Thursday said,
which brings us to tonight Doomsday agreed. The last thing
(34:41):
Clay said to me when I dropped him off at
a truck stop about two months back was that Eulixe
would turn on his summoners. I didn't really believe him,
not until tonight. There was a rap on the sliding
door and I jolted Vulture, slid open the door and
had a brief conversation with someone. They're ready, I guess,
he reported, then slipped outside. The days stood up, strained
(35:04):
each other's collars and hair, then went out the door. Well,
Brent said, I suppose we're going to a funeral. Duh,
there's really a cliffhanger, but you know that's what we got.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
Yeah. I I I find the uh, the the idea
you're playing with here particularly compelling because it's it's such
a again, it's such like a The actual conflict here
is so grounded, like a significant chunk of our audience
have have dealt with the problem of like self declared
(35:42):
security taking power and radical activists. Like it's the it's
like the easiest way to tell if somebody is a problem,
if they've like appointed themselves security and sort of this. Uh,
but also like when you're the the the difficulty is
like it's a double edged knife, right because not only
(36:05):
is there the problem of like people putting themselves in
a position of power, but when you start talking about like, well,
how do we get someone out of power, how do
we like remove the like, well, that's the effectively the
same problem, just a different shade of it, and it
can go it's the same dark places again. I just
love I love the I love that all of the
(36:26):
the actual like the quote unquote monster in this isn't
isn't the monster I can definitely see. You know, we
talk when we hang out, we talk a lot about Tolkien,
and I can see I can even see a bit
of Toll Like I can see the Tolkien in this story, right,
because like, no matter how how kind of like grand
the magic we're talking about here, the actual, the actual
(36:52):
conflict is always power and how to use it and
how it gets used, whether or not it ever can
be Uh anyway, I don't know. I like your stories, Margaret.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
Thanks.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
Well, if people want to hear part two, chapters three
and four, they're gonna have to wait a whole last week.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
Isn't that just cruel you assholes? How dare you wait? Yes?
Speaker 2 (37:17):
Yeah, but we'll be back next Sunday for the second
episode of the It could Happen Here book Club? Or
is it the Cool Zone book Club?
Speaker 1 (37:26):
What is this called the Cool Zone book Club? That
is that is your job to figure out?
Speaker 2 (37:32):
All right, it's the Cool Zone book Club.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
Yeah, it rolls off, happens to your ear earbuds. So
check back in next week where we will uh, we'll
be doing more punk X files. I will say I
think modern David Duchovny would be great, uh in as
as an elder punk in the Danielle Kane series one
stick him in there.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
One one like Wonderful Brief Week Holly with director who's
like movies I've seen and shit was like messaging me
on Twitter looking into adapting this and it didn't end
up going forward. But I had this moment where I
was like, I want to see this show so badly.
Speaker 1 (38:13):
Yeah, well I also you could, you could, You could
absolutely have Molder in this, just like Molder as an adult,
when he's when his life has finally collapsed around him,
just like living in his squat, masturbating, he was studying
pornography the way he always did on this show, just
like this week. Oh yeah, that guy moved in here
like a couple of years ago, and he's like he's
(38:35):
unsettling his hell, but he seems like he might be
the guy to go to about this monster.
Speaker 2 (38:39):
Situationally, everyone kind of puts up with him, even though
like he's not quite sure why he's there. They're not
quite sure.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
Why he's there. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
Yeah, well, if you're listening a different Hollywood director than
the last one who wasn't able to uh, you know,
you can reach me, but everyone else can reach me. Bye.
Waiting a week, that's not really reaching me. That's just waiting.
That's what you can do.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
Yeah, so wait,
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