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