Where There's Smoke...

I spent yesterday morning geocaching in Kernersville, NC, with friend Diefenbaker (a.k.a. Scott), followed by an excellent lunch at Don Juan's, one of my longtime favorite Mexican restaurants. Brugger was returning from an artsy-craftsy event in Hickory, NC, so after I parted company with Scott, she and I barged in on our friends Terry & Beth at their Kernersville home. We downed plentiful wine and tapas, enjoyed some time in their hot tub, and then spent a good hour on their back porch watching a huge column of black smoke erupting from some point about a mile from their house. We learned later that it came from a fire at OmniSource, a scrap metal recycling center, and as of this writing, it's contained but not fully extinguished. The wind carried the smoke column away from our location, but it could seen from I-77 in Fancy Gap, Virginia, about fifty miles north-northwest. One firefighter was injured, but there are thankfully no reports of any others, as far as I know.

In an altogether happier vein, The House at Black Tooth Pond has been getting a decent amount of love, which pleases me no end. Last week, I was a guest on two different podcasts, courtesy of authors Rick Kleffel and Bryan Nowak; of course I will post links to them when they go live.

A few excerpts from recent reviews:

"The House at Black Tooth Pond is a great read for lovers of small town horror, cosmic horror, and police procedurals. I enjoyed the combination of these subgenres..."—Rebecca Cuthbert

"Rainey is one of a handful of writers who can give you the supernatural, the cosmic, and the eldritch terror in carefully measured doses that intoxicate you with their simple cleverness and their absolute dread. Lovecraft would be proud. So keep the lights on while you read..."—John M. Cozzoli (The HorrorZine)

"The House at Black Tooth Pond climaxes into a beautiful, (you know what I mean) cosmic 'Holy Crow, Are You Kidding Me?,' finale that's completely satisfying. Highly recommended.—Alice Loweecy

"Stephen Mark Rainey returns to haunted Sylvan County, Virginia, with this slow-burn weird tale in the tradition of H.P. Lovecraft, Fritz Leiber, TED Klein, Twin Peaks, and maybe even The Trollenberg Terror..."—Joe Maddrey

Speaking of Ms. Cuthbert, who was kind enough to give Black Tooth Pond a nice review, I found her collection, The Six o'Clock House & Other Strange Tales, a most engaging read, with several tales that I found superlative (my review is live at Goodreads; still pending on Amazon). She is also an accomplished graphic artist, and very kindly created a nice promo graphic for Black Tooth Pond that I am more than happy to use and share. Thank you, Rebecca!

I've started listening to the audiobook of friend/author Scott Thomas's 2017 novel, Kill Creek. Several chapters in, I'm enjoying it very much. The narration by Bernard Setaro Clark is smooth and engaging. Will give this one a full review when I'm done.

Till next time...

Conflagration

Back in high school, inspired by my love of miniature sets in the monster movies of the day, I constructed a model city of cardboard and miscellaneous scrap material on a roughly 3' x 4' section of drywall. I made all kinds of buildings, tiny cars, telephone poles (out of broom straw), electrical towers (also of broom straw), road signs...all manner of details in tiny scale. I owned a few custom-made monster figures — Godzilla, Rodan, Angilas, and Damiron (a critter from one of my early short stories, titled "Night of the Firebeast") made by my friend Bill Gudmundson, and the city made a great display setting. At one point, I caught a large praying mantis, which I set loose in the miniature streets. It seems like I took some photos at the time, but if I did, they are apparently long gone.

For my age and skill level, the mini metropolis was a reasonably accomplished effort, but it wasn't long before I found it wanting. So I set it on fire. That part was fun, and I decided that, someday, I'd devote time and energy to constructing a new, far superior miniature city.

Well, it didn't happen right away. Almost twenty years later — 1992, to be exact — during an extended hiatus for Deathrealm magazine (a result of being laid off from my job), I found myself with more time than money. So, between job hunting and writing fiction (I also wrote my first novel, Balak, during that period), I set to work constructing a new miniature city. This one was smaller than the original — I built it on a 2.5-foot square of heavy cardboard — but considerably more elaborate. I planned it meticulously, designed fairly complex buildings, many with semi-detailed interiors visible through windows made of acetate sheets. There were tiny cars, trucks, parking meters, traffic lights, even wires strung from the myriad broom straw power poles. I used many of the same type of materials as the original little city — cardboard, bristol board, broom straw, plaster of Paris, faux foliage from hobby shops... any kind of scrap I could turn into miniature city features. I spent most of year on the project. And looking back, it turned out to be a pretty fair piece of work. I displayed it proudly for a long, long time — often with one or more daikaiju figures towering over its streets and buildings.

Over the years, though, the delicate structures began to deteriorate. Roofs occasionally collapsed, walls came apart, signs fell... and layers of dust accumulated two cars deep in places. It truly looked like the setting of some low-budget post-apocalyptic film.

And now, with Brugger moving in, space at a premium, and massive remodeling happening at Casa de Rodan, it just seemed like the old city had gone too far past its prime. So, last night, after a long bout with making room for new flooring throughout the house, Brugger and I took the old thing out back and set the match to it.

I have to admit it was kind of tough letting go, considering how much time, effort, and creativity I had put into it, but at least there are pics. And the conflagration is documented on video. Here it is in all its fiery splendor.

The Day I Burned Up Martinsville

...or damn near.

Getting tagged by a bunch of ornery yellow jackets yesterday brought to mind a particularly dramatic episode from my sordid youth, the consequences of which I might still be paying to this day had things gone badly. I can't help but suspect I am still here only because of my mom's ever-fervent prayers for the good lord to deliver me from my own stupidity. For most of my childhood, and some would say significantly beyond, I needed as many prayers as any God-fearing soul might offer, perhaps more so than most of my youthful partners in crime.

Witness the following account:

I was about ten, which means my younger brother, Phred, was five-ish. Our house was (and is) surrounded by picturesque woods, about which we did (and still do) love to wander. Apart from Bigfoot, a Wampus Cat, the Zanti Misfits, an Allosaurus, and something called The Ick, I had never encountered anything overtly hostile in those woods, and neither my little brother nor I felt any compunction about roaming them freely. Now, behind the house, there is a sizable hillside, back then completely wooded, now partly cleared for an electrical substation. Phred and I had been out exploring the heretofore undiscovered wilderness a half a block or so up the street. An exciting expedition indeed—until that last fateful moment before we set foot back in our own yard.

We were just making our way down the wooded hill behind the house when my brother stumbled into a hole in the ground and erupted into hellish caterwauling. Oh yes, he had discovered a sizable nest of yellow jackets, and they had discovered him. He came tearing out of those woods as if his head were on fire and his rear end was catching. I recall desperately wanting to rescue him from the swarm, but since there was a huge, seething cloud of the things, I deemed it far wiser to sit back and watch from a distance.

My parents heard the shrieking and came rushing out, and I believe it was Dad who grabbed Phred, swatted him up and down to kill as many yellow jackets as possible, and ran him into the house. The poor boy had I don't know how many stings—dozens, I'd guess. An unhappier camper I'm certain I had never seen up to that point in my young life.

Now, happily, neither of us suffer any severe allergies to critter stings, so after a period of considerable discomfort, Phred made a quick and full recovery. But I found myself guilt-stricken for not having rescued him from that raging swarm, and I quickly began to formulate a plan to dish out some just deserts for the inhabitants of that blasphemous hell-hole.

Step 1 was to pour a large Coca Cola bottle full of gasoline from the can Dad kept in the basement for the lawn mower. Step 2 was to clandestinely procure some matches from the kitchen cabinet. Step 3 was to fill a plastic bucket with water just for good measure. So I hauled myself and my instruments of revenge up the hill until I could see the offending aperture in the earth not far ahead. A few little yellow bastards were buzzing around it, but they appeared to be taking no notice of me. So I crept on up with my bottle of gasoline and, with cool deliberation, poured every last drop of it into the opening. As you might guess, this stirred up a fuss within, and I suspect I was lucky that the gasoline overcame any number of would-be attackers. I took a step back, struck a match, and dropped it into the hole.

WHOOMP!

I didn't know what had just happened. As if in slow motion, this huge ball of golden-red flame came billowing up at me, and only my youthful reflexes saved me from becoming a human torch. I dropped to the ground and skittered away from the inferno, my foremost thought being "charcoal lighter fluid never went up like that!" (I had lots of experience with charcoal lighter fluid.) My second thought was that I'd better get to that bucket of water with all possible haste. I scrambled over to it, lifted it above my head, and dumped the water straight into the newborn volcano. Now, that extinguished some of the blaze, but as you surely know (I did not), gasoline floats, and several little rivers of flame went trickling into the surrounding dry grass and foliage.

That fire was spreading faster than my brain was working. I thought maybe I could go back to the house and refill the bucket, but by that time, most of the woods and possibly our house would have burned up. Knowing I had little choice, I braved the flames and any surviving yellow jackets—I didn't see any, as they had probably all been blown up real good—and started smothering the spreading rings of fires with the bucket. By some miracle (Mom's prayers?), I managed to get the blazes under control, all without either getting flambéed or stung to death. Once the flames were mostly out, I ran back to the house with my bucket, filled it up, and returned to the disaster area, where I once again drenched the scorched earth. I repeated this procedure at least three or four times, and by the time I was finished, the fires were completely out.

The only evidence of what I had done, at this point, was a cloud of smoke hovering over the area and a charred patch of ground roughly ten to twelve feet in diameter. I sat out there for a hour or so to make sure the area didn't spontaneously reignite. I remember praying for my mom not to come outside, but I knew my dad would be getting home from work soon. I did my best to shed myself of all signs of panic, get cleaned up, and go back inside as if nothing had ever happened.

After all that, I will tell you that the true miracle of the day was that neither of my parents ever went down to the lower part of the backyard and looked up at that hillside, because if they had, I would not be here now to tell you that story. Had Dad ever found out, I'm pretty sure I would have preferred getting burned up in the inferno or fatally stung by little yellow bastards to what would have surely followed. I've always hoped my little brother appreciated me laying my life on the line to avenge his agony.

And that was the Day I Burned Up Martinsville.

The old homestead, which I'm glad I managed NOT to burn down.