Bummed

Our next-door neighbors of the past four years, Paul and Jamie, left today to move out west, so a big old wave of depression has fallen upon me. They're a young couple — about the same age as our daughter — and Jamie is well on her way to becoming a psychologist, as she passed her dissertation last month. When they moved in back in 2004, we hit it off right away, and we've good friends ever since. Since March of this year, they've been our regular geocaching partners, and we've had a slew of great adventures out on the trail (not to mention underground). We knew they were going to be moving at some point, but it always seemed somewhere off in the future. Not anymore.

In all the years Peg and I have been married, we haven't really had neighbors that we could just pop in and out with, share dinner on one of our respective patios whenever we felt like it, look after each other's critters, watch movies on weekends, and all that nice stuff. They are just good, good people, and I'm glad we had these past few years to spend together. I really hope their move is everything they want it to be.

Last night, we had a final dinner together. They left us a photo of them and a really beautiful note, so we have that reminder.

I am so going to miss these folks.

I did get a little cheerer-upper this evening; a noteworthy and well-paying publication wants to use one of my older stories in an upcoming issue, so that's one of those deals I can't rightly refuse. No details just now, but definitely later.

And I hiked four miles on the trail this afternoon. A wee bit pooped, yes we are.

Yellowjacket Hell

That was our front porch for the past couple of weeks. We've had this old chair sitting out there, which should have been dumped years ago, but Mrs Death has always enjoyed sitting in it when going out to have a smoke. Several days back, she sat down, and a couple of very rude yellowjackets came round and stung her on the arm. I took a look at the chair, and sure enough, a horde of the little bastards had made a nest underneath it. I hit the nest with some Raid, but that was only sufficient to kill a handful; the rest of them got riled. Four stings on the leg for me.

So I let them be for a time, but the nest got bigger and bigger, and after a time, the porch pretty much no longer belonged to us.

Last night, we hosted a surprise party at our place for Sir William “Bill” Trotter, so I made up my mind to wage all-out war on the interlopers before our guests arrived.

Phase 1: Removing the Nest
I have to get dangerously close to the nest to loop a long cord around the legs of the chair, and several buzz by on a recon mission, but I just smile and wave, allaying their suspicions. "Stupid human would not have audacity to meddle in yellowjacket affairs," and all that. Guess what, rabble.

Giving myself a good twenty feet of slack, I go out into the yard and began pulling. I drag that chair clean off the porch and into the yard, and now the horde is all abuzz, zooming here and there, creating one helluva dark cloud over the chair. I tug that chair to the edge of the yard, now having to dodge the occasional angry scout.

Phase 2: The Garden Hose
With the chair and the main part of the nest now a good fifty feet from the house, I hit the nest with a high-pressure stream, which in no time dislodges it from the chair and stirs up yet another cloud of critters, which soon cover up the whole sky. I'm about thirty feet from the chair, but one of the fuckers finds me and zaps me on the shin. An ugly war wound.

After about ten minutes, the chair is a sopping mess but appears critter-free. Now I return my attention to the front porch, which is alive with the things, and I realize there was a second nest (or perhaps an outpost of the first) in a big cardboard box that had been behind the chair. I turn the water on the box for a full half hour and watch streams of dead and dying yellowjackets gushing over the edge of the porch into the shrubs. But the main cloud shows little sign of thinning, and I realize that, in order to turn off the water, I must get within ten feet of the furious horde.

I make a fast dash to the spigot, then a quantum leap back out to the yard. No stings this time.

Phase 3: First Raid!
For good measure, I bring out the bug spray and hit the chair, which actually still contains quite a few very angry vescula squamosas. Five minutes later, there appears to be nothing left alive. However, there are still plenty crawling around the devastated nest on the ground — which is now surrounded by thousands of larva that have fallen out of it. Ants are carrying away larva by the score, and though I'm tempted to let them have their way, I'm taking no chances. A few good barrages of Raid, and this corner of battlefield is a graveyard: nothing, absolutely nothing is left alive.

Phase 4: Second Raid!
The porch remains abuzz for another four hours. With guests on the way, I know it will be bad news if they come to the front door, so I put up a sign directing them around back. Then, as the sun begins to set, the yellowjackets retreat into the drenched but evidently still functional box. Let no mortal combat interfere with the regularly scheduled beauty sleep!

WIth the garden claw, I open up the top of the box and am stunned — STUNNED, I tell you — to see that THOUSANDS of the enemy still survive, and are arranged in the most beautiful, symmetrical rows in the bottom of the box. Their numbers make my heart tremble, for if they should suddenly converge on me...

But no...they're right where I want them.

I close the box except for one corner, which I bend upward to create an opening. Then, through it, I apply a constant stream of Raid until the can is almost empty. A few of the beasts come buzzing out and attack the porchlight, making themselves relatively easy targets for the remaining spray. They weave in the air and then plummet. Others stagger out of the box and keel over, and as more and more of them pile up on the porch, the floor becomes a vast, mass yellowjacket grave. This is a grim but awe-inspiring sight.

Within ten minutes, no sign of life remains.

Later, a few solitary survivors zoom around the house in confusion. Before bedtime, I take a final look at the porch.

It is done.

The Aftermath
This morning, I take a look into the box. It's loaded with corpses, and thousands of them litter the floor. The chair is removed to the street, where it will be picked up with the trash this week.

But now I am hearing a constant buzzing, somewhere in the distance. I'm not sure I like the suggestion of airborne shapes that flicker past my window or even through the living room. I've seen a couple of wasps watching me suspiciously, as if aware that I might have had something to do with the wanton destruction of a number of their distant kin. Now and again, I feel the creepy-crawlies, as if something is walking around the back of my neck.

If something happens to me, I want you to know I only did what I had to. It was a righteous battle, and I regret nothing.

I fear I must soon visit WalMart to buy more Raid.

Yes. I must have more.

Back in the Shadows Again

Dark Shadows, that is. I've written an audio drama script for Big Finish Productions (UK), tentatively titled Dark Shadows: Path of Fate, and it's currently in production. David Selby and Lara Parker, from the original TV series, appear their respective roles as Quentin Collins and Angelique Bouchard. (Well, their voices "appear," anyway.)

The release date has not been finalized, but I anticipate late 2008, early 2009. The production will be available on CD and MP3 download.

Yes, that's the script, whose deadline(s) kept me hopping for a while. Whee-ew!

If You Know About It, It Knows About You...

Want an autographed copy of the trade paperback edition of my new collection, Other Gods, from Dark Regions—for free?

"If you know about it, it knows about you. If you see it, it will come for you."

That's a quote from one of my stories. The title of that story appears in several places on my Web site, including the Other Gods info page. Visit The Realm of Stephen Mark Rainey, find the story's title in the text or contents list of one or more of my books (not in a head or subhead), and click on it. It doesn't appear as a regular link, but you'll know if you find it.

Note: a purchase is required, but I think you'll find it one helluva bargain. Enjoy....

Wampus Cat

A couple of weeks back, I made mention of the Wampus Cat (Grendel? Wampus Cat? Larry Talbot?). Here's the answer:

The Wampus Cat is a critter out of southern folklore—originally eastern Tennessee, I'm told, but the legend also found a comfortable home in the mountains of western North Carolina. When I was a youngster and went to summer camp in the NC mountains, it was easily the most chilling of the many tales that counselors and elderly locals told us to scare us out of our pants. Let it be known that I left at least a drawerful of pants back at Camp Cheerio, circa 1968.

Now, I love me some folklore. The legend tells us that, once upon a time, a young Indian woman, curious about the magical powers of the tribe's medicine man, dressed herself in the skin of a mountain lion and followed him so she could watch him do his thing. Alas, in those distinctly non-feminist days of yore, women were strictly forbidden from witnessing acts of magic. The medicine man caught her and, to punish her for her wicked ways, turned her into a half-woman, half-cat creature, doomed to roam the Appalachian forests from there on out. Eventually, in her misery, she went insane, which—as you might guess—did not bode well for the local population.

Back at camp, nobody knew where the Wampus Cat came from. They only knew that it was real and preyed on youngsters who converged on the NC mountains every summer from points all over the country. My introduction to the Wampus Cat was the story of a couple of young campers who didn't heed their counselors' warnings and wandered into the woods by themselves late one afternoon. They never came back, so a search party went looking for them. Just as the sun was going down, the men came upon a big wall made out of fallen timber, and atop a couple of the posts were the heads of the missing children. About that time, a huge catlike creature that walked on two legs appeared and leaped right at the rescuers. One of them shot the thing several times—which didn't kill it but dissuaded it from attacking just long enough for the men to run to safety—with the monster on their heels the whole way.

The next story was accompanied by photographic evidence. In this one, a number of campers and counselors went for an overnight campout on Snake Island, which was a tiny little island at one end of the local lake (this was also the place where I saw my first copperhead in the wild; a cute little thing). Just at sunset that evening, a rustling noise came from the lake bank. One of the counselors produced a camera just in time to photograph a huge, catlike creature leaping into the air, onto the island, and then to the opposite lakebank. The photo was posted in the camp's main office, and was frequently passed around to show us kids that, yes, the Wampus Cat was out there, and, no, we ought not wander off anywhere on our own.

Sure, as far as I knew, the blurry photo of the creature silhouetted against the sky might have been some counselor's housecat that he tossed up in the air, but back in those days...holy canoli, it was proof. There really was a Wampus Cat, and that sucker could do some serious leaping. I was so impressed that, when our group went out to Snake Island for an overnight campout, I was not among them. I stayed safe and snug in the cabin that night and listened to great horned owls laughing at me.

I did, however, work up the nerve to sleep out under the stars one night right outside the cabin, along with several other intrepid campers.

Oh, it was a dark night; no stars, no moon; just a lot of nightbirds and insects yammering away. And the sound of something nearby going thump.

Thump. And THUMP! Getting closer and closer.

Yeah, there went one pair of drawers.

Then something went THUMP!—right on my little noggin, and young Mark screamed so loud people heard me at Myrtle Beach, 300 miles away.

Turns out that we had parked our sleeping bags right under an apple tree, and the apples were engaged in a series of Newtonian experiments, to which we were unwitting witnesses.

Apart from that really special photo, I never actually saw hide or hair of the Wampus Cat. But let me tell you, that pussy sure made a man out of me. From that night night on, I've never had the slightest fear of apples. I must wonder if those young campers who were with me could make the same claim.

Hell Is Just Ahead

In my near-daily hunt for geocaches, I'm continually discovering new places in and around Greensboro. There are still miles and miles of trails I haven't gotten to yet, and each trail I find strikes me as more scenic or interesting than the last. Yesterday, I put in three miles on a portion of the Nat Greene trail that I'd never hiked, and today, despite high heat and humidity, I did a good four miles on the Laurel Bluff trail. I'm bushed and a little sore, but the hike was a real experience, and I wish I had taken my camera with me. At one point, I passed a cairn-like pile of stones with an old, rusted tricycle mounted atop them. That's not really something I see all that often.

In these southern woods, beech trees are everywhere, and if you've ever seen a beech, you probably saw lots of initials and messages carved into its trunk. After all, what else is that smooth, gray bark there for? One beech on the Laurel Bluff trail bears the message, "Hell Is Just Ahead," and it's dated 1961. (Needless to say, there's a nearby cache bearing the same title.)

In contrast to the Nat Greene trail, which was brimming with hikers and mountain bikers yesterday, there appeared to be nary a soul besides myself in the woods today. It was remarkably quiet, though the wildlife was plentiful. Saw quite a few deer, rabbits, frogs, a luna moth caterpillar, and...a black squirrel. Now I've seen plenty of gray squirrels and red squirrels, but I've never come upon a black one. Okay, maybe he had been playing under a parked car somewhere and gotten covered in grease, as my dog used to do when I was a kid, who knows? But anyway...he was black.

I saw this harbinger of odd things just as I came upon Hell Is Just Ahead. And right about then, a great horned owl started hooting somewhere nearby. A beautiful, melancholy sound; a little eerie, even. I do love those owls, even if they are not what they seem. Appropriately, I dropped a Twin Peaks postcard into the cache. The next one wasn't too far away, so I decided to bushwhack straight to it rather than return to the trail. This was when things got a little odd.

Apparently, I had entered the wrong coordinates in my GPS for that next cache because I ended up heading south rather than north, which was away from where I knew the cache ought to be. Soon, I came upon the foundation of an old house out in the woods, and then I heard low, furtive voices not too far away. I felt distinctly uncomfortable, so I started back toward the trail, heading due north.

I walked...and walked...and walked...but the trail seemed to have vanished. By this time, I'm starting to feel like I'm in The Blair Witch Project—though in a version cast with a lone dude who is far more dashing and resourceful than the original cast members, and armed with a bamboo whacky stick. I bring up the coordinates to the next cache, which is about a half mile away, and head straight for it. When I get there, I find the trail again. For the rest of the hike, I resolve to stay on it.

On the way back, the trail did nothing funky; it ran pretty much true east-west, and I never did see the divergence that had led me up to the old foundation. What happened, I'm fairly certain, is that bizarre forces altered space for a brief period, intending to deliver me to those unknown parties carrying on furtively near the old remains. However, when said forces realized that, yow, that guy's got a bamboo whacky stick, they thought better of it and put me right back where I belonged.

Smart, those bizarre forces.

It was a good hike. Six out of six caches found. That makes a total of 407, I believe.

A Dark Regions Special

I usually try to avoid a lot of noise and bluster and keep salesmanship fairly low-key around here. However, YOU GOTTA GO GET THIS PACKAGE FROM DARK REGIONS. It's a four-book lot that includes the trade paperback edition of my new collection, Other Gods, along with Proverbs for Monsters by Michael A. Arnzen, Vectors: A Week In The Death of a Planet by Charlee Jacob & Marge Simon, and Songs of Silver by Laura J. Underwood. You get the lot for 40% off, and right now, there's probably not a better deal on the planet, unless you get, like, free gasoline for the rest of your life or something.

I always recommend ordering from Horror Mall, as it's proven to be as speedy and reliable as booksellers come. So go here: Dark Regions 40% Off Sale. That's four books for $39.95 plus shipping. It's very safe to say you'll get more than more your money's worth.

It Ain't Just Bastille Day...

...It's also Mrs Death's birthday. Happy birfday, Mrs Death! (For anyone who isn't aware, Mrs Death is the wife.) She sure is old!

(Okay, I'll be back in a couple of years, after the wounds heal.)

Happiness Is...

1,200 tracks by Akira Ifukube (Godzilla, kith and kin) on your iPod.

A dirty martini with habanero pepper–stuffed olives.

A contract for the script you've labored over for weeks, with payment on the way.

A new short story acceptance.

Enough money to buy gasoline to get to the friggin' office this week.

Well, four out of five ain't bad. Who needs to go to the office anyway?

P.S. Chicago

Oh, yeah. Some things have changed in Chicago. Used to be that if you stopped your car at a stoplight, somebody would come out, clean your windshield, and hope you'd fling a couple of bucks his way. I guess too many of them got run over doing that, because now I've discovered that if you stop walking, some fucker will come up, start cleaning your shoes before you can say "My kingdom for a Hoveround," and demand eight dollars.

Well, no, I didn't run over the guy. I didn't give him eight bucks, either.

RDU to ORD and Back

Chicago is still there, all right. I saw it with my own eyes. Lived there back in the 80s and have visited many times since. In all my days, though, this recent long weekend was the first time I've stayed down in the Loop for several days doing mostly touristy stuff. I gots to say, touristy stuff has its charms.

Thursday morning, Mrs Death and I flew to O'Hare from Raleigh-Durham and met up with our friends, Daryl and Melissa, whom we've known since the absolute darkest of ages (not that I'd know anything about dark ages). Partook of much good food and drink, and went down to Taste of Chicago at Grant Park—initially with plans to see the fireworks. Eventually, though, due to several factors, we opted to return to the hotel. (Turns out this might have been a good thing, as several people got shot at the park.) So we hung out at a really nice little bistro next to the hotel for a while, and after our friends retired, Mrs Death and I went out for some late-night geocaching (found three).

Friday was a good day of sightseeing and partaking of more food and spirits. Hung out at Navy Pier, where the men dressed as ladies, and...oh, wait, wrong tale. Hung out at Navy Pier, where we sought a particular geocache, but to no avail. Walked many miles, made feet sore. Had to drink some more to cool the toes. Friday night, we celebrated Mrs Death's upcoming birthday at a rowdy little piano bar called Howl at the Moon, where Mrs Death bamboozled the piano player by requesting "Sweat Leaf" by Black Sabbath. Since he was so thoroughly bamboozled, he made Peg come up on stage so he might serenade her with a marvelously indecent rendition of Happy Birthday. That Mrs Death.

Spent most of yesterday hunting caches in a forest preserve in Streamwood, one of Chicago's far northwest suburbs. Found five. Got home late this afternoon after—you guessed it—hunting caches between Raleigh and Greensboro. Found 15 or so.

Tomorrow, it's to work on some revisions on the Big One I've been laboring over for the past few weeks.

I leave you with these.

"Emergency! Emergency! Rodan is approaching!"

A beautiful day to arrive in the city.

A wild bunch partaking of Things Wet.

The Bean. There's some weird shit in Chicago anymore.

Like I said.

Caching at the Water Tower.

-30-

Finished the big ol' project I've had my face buried in for several weeks. Turned it in, along with a long synopsis, a short synopsis, the name of my daughter's first boyfriend, and all that accompanying business.

Next comes revision stage. At least there's a little breathing room, and I've got a couple of extra days off for Independence Day. Hoo-wah.

Have a great Fourth.

VMNH Geocaching Day

 Although to many it might seem very near invisible, one of Martinsville, VA's most attractive and socio-economically progressive institutions is the Virginia Museum of Natural History. It conducts significant research, hosts some very appealing exhibits (such as dinosaurs, dinosaurs, and dinosaurs!), and also sponsors lots of positive community programs, such as day camps for kids and teens, outings to clean up local streams and rivers, health seminars for seniors, and...an introduction to geocaching!

Bright and early this morning, I headed out to the Gravely Nature Preserve, just outside Martinsville's city limits, where 30-some local folks interested in geocaching came out to learn just what it's all about. I had volunteered to help out, so I tagged along to hinder as best I might a group of up-and-coming cachers on the mile-and-a-half trail. The young lady in charge of the outing, who goes by the handle MuseumWren, did a really nice job of planning the activity and getting folks together to learn about how to use multi-billion dollar military satellites to find Tupperware in the woods. Several of the groups went after the caches that I had set up on the trail a couple of months ago, and I believe each of them managed to make the finds -- even the tricky little micro-container planted in a tree.

I went with several very nice folks who really took to the challenge right from the start. They had originally targeted just one of my hides, but we ended up going to all three, plus a puzzle cache that MuseumWren set up. Unfortunately, one young lad stumbled upon a yellowjacket nest, and he and his dad got stung several times -- but they both shrugged off the stings and went on to make a couple of tricky finds. What troopers!

Best of all, I finally got to meet a local cacher (handle Kuykenew), whom I've known online for several months; and my good friends, the Albaneses, who've become geocachers of dark renown, showed up as well. This was a really nice activity that got a bunch of strangers together for a good time and a wee bit of education.

Tonight, I grilled out chicken for my mom and me. The rest of the day has been devoted to meeting that looming deadline. Hoo boy, it's closing fast.

Grendel? Wampus Cat? Larry Talbot?

After going great guns on the latest writing project for several days, I took a break yesterday and hit the trail to grab a couple of geocaches. I was a pretty fair distance out on the Osprey Trail, near Lake Townsend, just north of Greensboro, when something came barreling through the woods, a couple of hundred feet away. At first, I thought it was a deer—it looked to be about the size of a big buck—but as it leaped over a fallen tree, I saw that it was dark gray and had a long, bushy tail. There were too many trees between it and me to get a real good look at it, and at the speed it was running, it was out of sight in a few seconds.

I don't think it was a dog, and it was way too large to be a fox. Possibly a coyote, as they do come around these parts now and again, but if so, it was sure a big one. Whatever it was, I'm kind of glad it went hauling ass in the other direction, rather than right at me.

The rest of the hike, I kept a sharp eye out, but I never saw nor heard any further sign of it or its kin. It was the one time I've hit the trail without taking my phone along, and for a while there, I rather wished I had it with me.

I did find a couple of nice caches, at least, making for a grand total of 329. I expect I will add several to that tally this coming weekend.

Other Gods, by the way, is now in stock at Horror Mall. Get out there and snag yourself a copy, if you've yet to do that snagging thing.

Dark Deadlines

Nothing like a tight deadline to get the writing process moving fast and hot. Can't say I'm too fond of having to write at such a pace on a regular basis, yet when I do, the prose tends to hit on all cylinders. Little word wastage, and the saved words prove to be mostly the right ones.

Try it sometime, even if there's not money riding on the deal. Might be worth your while.

Porcupine Sex

It's a pity that certain communiques didn't come up prior to the editors' panel at Mo*Con this weekend. Porcupine Sex

Mo News Is Good News

Ye Olde Mo*Con III Report...

With the string of snafus getting longer and nastier at the Indianapolis airport yesterday afternoon, I wasn't sure I was going to make it home before growing too old to know where I was. But after a very late departure and a route that turned a 170-mile flight into an over 500-mile flight, I made my connection at Chicago's O'Hare (only just) and arrived back in Greensboro last night, barely an hour later than scheduled. Of course I had heard about the big storms in the midwest, but until I ended up flying over portions of Indiana, Missouri, and Illinois, I had no real conception of how widespread it was. From 35,000 feet, as far as the eye could see, the midwest looked like the world's biggest mud puddle. In places, there was more water than terrain; it looked like an endless, shallow lake with occasional land features protruding. On Friday, just after I arrived, Indianapolis got some further big rain, but it broke later in the day, and the rest of the weekend was beautiful.

Mo*Con III got off to a propitious start: as soon as I checked into the hotel, I set out to find some nearby geocaches — in the pouring rain, of course. Found a couple; then headed over to the Broaddus house, courtesy of Maurice's beautiful and talented young assistant, Lauren (who deserves special credit for going far beyond the call of duty in transporting folks all over creation and making sure Maurice was doing what he oughta be when he oughta be). Met Maurice's lovely wife Sally (also deserving of special credit, particularly for enduring the burdens Maurice drops upon her!) and their energetic kids, plus many of the other guests and nefarious infiltrators, such as her hineyness Alethea Kontis, Kelli "Horror Wench" Dunlap, Nick Mamatas, Chesya Burke, Sara Larson, Michael West, and Kim Paffenroth. Then I left again with Lauren to abduct Matt Cardin upon his arrival at the airport, which we did in short order.

Back to the Broaddus's for an excellent dinner of chicken marsala and fettucine Alfredo, then to the Dwelling Place (Where It All Happened). Then, for one of the weekend's highlights, I led Lauren, the Wench, and Princess Alethea on a geocaching excursion to a nearby graveyard. Found the cache in short order and then headed out to a nearby park to seek another one. It was here that things began to unravel. Turned out there was no direct way to the cache other than to bushwhack through thick foliage, so Kelli and Lauren remained near the very busy road while Alethea and I ventured into the brush. We come upon water...and more water...and more water...and finally, Alethea says she's going to hold up. I go in farther and farther...and suddenly I'm surrounded by deep water on all sides. It's some real flooding we have here! Then I hear Alethea hollering at me that the cops have arrived on the scene. I come out of the woods to hear Lauren telling a couple of officers, "We're from the church! This is a church outing!" Kelli's telling the cops that the guy coming out of the woods will explain. So I tell them all about geocaching; they tell us we probably don't want to be skulking around in the woods and busy road in this area. We all agree it's a good idea, so we head back to The Dwelling Place, and ten to one the cops went out to hunt caches. The band Mother Grove was now hard at it, cranking out some rockin' Celtic sounds, which I enjoyed a lot. Eventually, I headed back to the hotel; no telling what time it was.

Saturday was a day of panels and food. Got to meet my longtime online Viking buddy, Bob Freeman; the beautiful Tracy Jones; redheaded horror firebrand Debbie Kuhn; Doug Warrick, Jason Sizemore, and many of the attending Indiana Horror Writers (forgive me for not having everyone's name in the old mental file cabinet). I was then pleased as all get-out to get to see old friend Gary Braunbeck after too many years, and to meet Lucy Snyder for the first time. Some invigorating panel discussion followed; first on spirituality and writing, with Matt Cardin (moderator), Maurice, Nick, Bob, Kim, Gary, and myself. Then I moderated a panel about editing, which ended up being fairly lively, with Nick, Jason, Chesya, Matt, and Frank Creed. Luncheon followed, consisting of many varieties of chili, some hot and spicy enough to make me smile. Then...geocaching. Snagged a couple (including the one from the waterlogged park, at long last), then returned for the Role of Gender in Horror panel, featuring Lucy, Gary, Chesya, Kelli, and Natalie Crish.

Spent an enjoyable Saturday evening back at Chez Broaddus, with a pizza supper and hangout time in the yard (a.k.a. mosquito heaven) with beaucoup Mo*Conners. Returned to the hotel at a reasonable hour (just after midnight, I believe) and went geocaching.

Sunday Morning opened with a church service at the Dwelling Place, the main feature being Brian Keene's testimony from the first Mo*Con. Very enlightening, moving, and entertaining. The service was often insightful, but it needed a good editor. After lunch, it was a wee bit more geocaching — this time unsuccessful, alas — and then off for the airport debacle. At least I got to spend some additional quality time with Matt and Nick while waiting on our respective flights.

Maurice, you have my admiration for undertaking an event as involved as Mo*Con, for which you receive mainly the intangible benefits of the company you bring in. It's got to be physically taxing as well as emotionally draining, but I hope you're up to it for a long time to come, as I really hope to return — even if I'm just a lowly infiltrator. For me it was a memorable experience — uplifting in every way.

Plus, I worked in some good geocaching and got some of us busted by the cops. How much better could it get?

Don D'Ammassa: "OTHER GODS" Not Entirely Full of Bilgewater

Well, the above can be inferred, given Don D'Ammassa's new review of Other Gods at his Critical Mass Web site. D'Ammassa writes, "Other Gods is a uniformly good collection with a few stories that stand out a little way, although the general quality is so high that you might not notice. The treatment varies from understated to quite explicit...not a bad story in the collection. A must-read for horror fans."

Visit here to get the whole sheboygan: Critical Mass Reviews, 6/8/08.

Then go here and buy the damn book already: Other Gods at Horror Mall

My big ol' outlining job is finished and sent to the appropriate parties, so now we play the waiting game. Haven't put in a stint like that since working on Dark Shadows: Dreams of the Dark back in '98.

This coming weekend, I'll be one of the troublemakers at Mo*Con III in Indianapolis. If you're in that part of the country, please come round. It's only $10 for the weekend, and there will be all kinds of marginally decadent goings-on for the amusement of attendees. (You didn't hear that from me, though.) Other folks involved include Maurice Broaddus (the brains behind the bash), Chesya Burke, Matt Cardin, Bob Freeman, Nick Mamatas, Kim Paffenroth, Lucy Snyder, and a number of other societal outcasts.

I can even fix you up with a copy of Other Gods, no questions asked.

At some point, I'll be excusing myself from the revelry for a time, as between the hotel and The Dwelling Place, there are at least 20 geocaches waiting to be claimed by a certain transient southerner.

Hot Parking and Grabbing

Yeah, so it didn't occur to me until some time after logging a number of geocaches last night that my phrasing might not have been the world's most prudent. Spent several hours caching in High Point with my friend Cindy, who used to work with me at the office; she goes by "Cute Chick," and I must say it's an apt handle. It was 97 degrees last night, so we worked up a good sweat even though we were in the air-conditioned car half the time (most of the caches were quick finds, known as "Park and Grabs"). So what do I do to log them but post "Went out for a HOT evening of parking and grabbing with Cute Chick." I hope she doesn't lob a brick at me, but there were too many logs to bother changing, and hey, the wording has a nice ring.

This weekend, I'm on a marathon writing session, trying to finish and polish a very important outline before Monday morning. I'm making good progress, but tomorrow's going to be a full day of it. Past the halfway point this evening, so at least that bodes well for the next big session.

Haven't blogged much lately, so I hope someone's still out there reading occasionally. Don't give up; I'm still alive and caching.

Help! Jack Haringa Must Die!

Lots of things happening/coming out all of a sudden. Help, the anthology to benefit Preditors & Editors in the lawsuit against them by PublishAmerica, et. al., which features my story, "Festival of the Jackal" just came out, as did Nick Kaufmann's Jack Haringa Must Die, which compiles a mess of dead Haringa blog entries, including a little booger titled "Woolly Solution," by this guy. The latest issue of Dark Discoveries magazine (#11) just arrived, along with the special Darker Discoveries chapbook, which includes my short-short, "Megan." A new Cemetery Dance with a new Rainey tale ("The Gaki") will soon be running rampant. And my newest collection, Other Gods, just hit the street in trade paperback format (the lettered and numbered hardback should arrive next month).

This past week, most of my time was devoted to working on an outline for a pretty big project I hope to be undertaking during the next month. Can't divulge details at the moment, but I'll post them if and when the light turns green. Assuming I get the job, I'll be mostly in seclusion for the month of June—except for the weekend of the 13th through 15th, when I'll be in Indianapolis for Mo*Con III.

So, that's it in a nutshell. See you on the other side...

CEMETERY DANCE #59 Is Loose

Cemetery Dance #59 is finally on its way, featuring my story, "The Gaki." The issue's cover art looks mighty fun. Good company, too, except for maybe that Vernon chap from Nova Scotia.

Also just received the latest issue of Dark Discoveries, and the chapbook published as a special-offer "extra," which includes my short-short, "Megan." Beautiful little package, this. Alas, I believe the chapbooks are all sold out, but if you're keen on wheeling and dealing, you might be able to dig one up somewhere. You can check out Dark Discoveries here.

And me, I've been stranded on a desert island for the past couple of days. Well, not exactly stranded, and it wasn't really a desert, but it was an island nonetheless. Camped out with a bunch of friends at Deer Island, on Philpott Lake, Virginia, which is one of the most beautiful sites in the state. Hiked, made fire, piloted a Wave Runner (and didn't fall off, unlike some folks I know), ate well, drank beer, found geocaches.

The latter activity involved tackling some of the most physically challenging terrain I've attempted in years—probably since I was a kid, as a matter of fact. The inclines I encountered were very long and damn near vertical. I did sit down quickly a time or two (which is preferable to slipping over a precipice), and fortunately came out only dirty rather than injured. Happily, the caches were unearthed, the logs signed.

Now it's hard to work on this new project, for there is a deadline, and a tight one.

There's Nothing Obsessive-Compulsive About It At All

It’s good to have wacky neighbors. Last night about 10:00 PM, my friend Paul calls up and asks if I want to go geocaching. I say yeah, so we head out to Lake Townsend Trail, which is pretty close by, and we embark on a late-night three-mile hike.

Yeah, it was dark out yonder. Several times we had to bushwhack several hundred feet off the trail to find the caches, so I marked the trail with the GPS before setting out. Good thing I did, or we’d be out there still.

Some potentially exciting news on the writing front. Can’t discuss it just now, but it’s a super project for me if all pans out. That makes a couple of biggies out there waiting in the wings; hopefully, one or the other (or both) will break before I grow really, really old. We shall see.

Addendum: Just got a note from Dark Regions Press that the trade paperback edition of my new collection, Other Gods, is now shipping. The hardback editions will be out in another month or so (they’re printed and bound at a different facility). A smiley for me!

So Now I Can Fit Into My Oldest Jeans...

...without busting them at the seams. (The fact that most of the seams are already busted does not enter into this, thank you very much.) All this recent exercise is at least paying off in a few little dividends.

Did get out to hunt quite a few geocaches these past few days; found several (coming up on my 200th find), and planted a new one tonight.

In the midst of it, I started a new short story for a certain market.

Got out to see Iron Man at the Eden Drive-in last weekend. Right fun, though it started raining for the last few minutes of the film, making it very difficult to see. But it was definitely a good time, and the drive-in cheeseburgers hit the spot.

I have discovered that heavy-duty geocaching brings on a severe cheeseburger craving. I can has one pleez?

Where the Sun Don't Shine

You haven't seen Greensboro, the town where I live, until you've seen it from underground.

Not that there's a lot to see in the pitch darkness beneath the roads, in a concrete-walled tunnel, with four inches of water trickling past your feet, a quarter of a mile from the nearest egress, somewhere beneath Fisher Park. After a time, the five-foot ceiling puts an uncomfortable, semi-permanent bend in your spine. You really, really hope your flashlight doesn't die. You have to keep a wary eye out for rats, snakes, spiders, and other potentially hostile indigenous life forms.

I suspect this is not what a whole heap of local folks do for a good time late at night, but for my friend Paul and I last night, it was a blast. We found the geocache.

I did mention to Paul's wife, Jamie, that our excursion was remarkably similar to a scene in my novel, Balak; I did not, however, tell her that, in the novel, things do not end well for the parties involved. It probably would not have been the right thing to say at the time.

Addendum: A nice royalty check for Blue Devil Island arrived. Mighty good timing, I have to say.

Orpheus With a Heart

Though rife with many of the trappings of the classic horror tale, Kim Paffenroth's novelette, Orpheus and the Pearl (Magus Press, 2008), isn't what I would call "horror" at all. With thematic elements that hearken to Dracula, Frankenstein, and Herbert West: Re-Animator, Orpheus is a haunting tale that offers a few little chills and the occasional shudder, but above all, it's a story with a heart (and no, not just an organ yanked out of somebody's chest cavity).

Set in the early 20th century, Orpheus opens with a scene reminiscent of Jonathan Harker's arrival at Castle Dracula, but here, it's a woman psychiatrist, Catherine McGuire, arriving at the dwelling of Dr. Wollston, a highly regarded physician/research scientist who faces an unusual moral, ethical, and practical problem: his young wife is recently deceased, but he has found a way to revive her to a state that resembles life. While her "soul" remains intact, preserving her body requires extensive measures, and her mind has suffered unexplainable damage by the ordeal of dying and resuscitation. Most significantly, she is prone to fits of extreme rage, with a corresponding amplification of physical strength and appetite. It is this problem that Dr. McGuire has been summoned to address.

Tension begins on page 1 and undulates snakelike behind every scene. Just how does one understand, psychoanalyze, and "cure" someone who is technically dead? Mrs. Wollston is not a mindless zombie, yet her presence inspires the kind of fear one might feel in the presence of a wild animal — an animal that might, at the slightest provocation, rip your throat clean out. As Dr. McGuire interacts more closely with Mrs. Wollston, we, as readers, gain increasing insight into this weird state somewhere between life and death, rendered by Paffenroth in alternating shades of clinical detachment and emotional intensity. The characters drive the story to a moving climax and a resolution that is at once hopeful and bittersweet.

Paffenroth's crafting is mostly masterful, yet all is not quite perfect in this novelette, for the occasional turn of a phrase clunks like a B-flat that should have been an F-major-seventh, and I'm not sure it's due entirely to the style of the telling. One line in particular slammed my reading to a stop and even now, it feels as ugly as scraping my fingers across a cheese grater. It describes "a wide, narrow window," followed by its approximate dimensions. This sentence could have breezed right to the portal's dimensions, leaving out the "wide, narrow" bit, and suffered not a smidgen of harm. Perhaps I nitpick, but this stood out sufficiently to make me remember it long after the fact. Thankfully, such gaffes are few in number, and none other so grievous, and when Paffenroth's prose is elegant, it is the very definition.

I'm going to recommend Orpheus for a Stoker as well as to you folks who are dying for a story that is both tense and touching. In my fairly long experience of reading dark fiction, I've too often found the latter quality deficient. Orpheus makes up for a mess of it.

Shorter of Breath and One Day Closer to Death

Friday was my 49th birthday, but I'm actually breathing pretty well (I seem to have successfully stopped smoking, but for a handful of cigarettes here and there since January). Since Friday, I've barely spent a moment indoors, having gone out and about on numerous caching expeditions (both finding and planting); trekked up to the old homeplace in Martinsville; spent an evening around a campfire in the woods; hiked a few miles just for the helluvit; and hung out with my brother, my wife, and old friends. The old bones are a little achy from the exertions, but a bit more hiking this afternoon followed by an evening martini will almost certainly fix it.

I received tons of happy birthday wishes, for which I'm grateful, and I'm slowly but surely sending out little thank-you notes. Hopefully I won't miss anyone, but if I do and you drop by here... mini tanks. It means a lot when people take even a few moments to acknowledge one of these little landmarks.

As for the one day closer to death thing...well, guess it kind of goes with the territory of living.

Today is my brother's birthday, so I guess I'll celebrate a bit more and maybe pilfer one of his gifts, just because it's a personal tradition.

FTF! TN, LN, SL. TFTC!*

Damn. I'm bone tired from the past few weeks of regular physical exertion. Last year at this time, when I was this tired, it was usually from being stressed out.

No, this is a great kind of tired. I've been hiking from two to six miles a day, gone crawling under low footbridges, scaled forty-foot piles of boulders, been out on a forest trail in the middle of the night following tiny reflectors in my flashlight beam for miles on end, waded through plantations of poison ivy, tangled with forests of briers that left me lacerated and bloody, picked my way through deadfalls deeper and darker than Stephen King could imagine, encountered copperheads and black widows, and stumbled about in the dark trying to figure out how to get back to my car because I didn't enter a freaking waypoint.

So far, I've got 134 geocaches to my credit, and that's small potatoes. Most of the folks I've gotten to know in this sport have thousands.

I haven't been this worn out or satisfied in years. And the creative batteries are getting a really good recharging.

*First to find! Took nothing, left nothing, signed log. Thanks for the cache!

Winter Frights

I announced while back that David Montoya had accepted my story, "Sarcophagus," for Magus Press's Winter Frights anthology, but he has just announced the complete lineup. Here it is:

"Scraper" by Michael A. Arnzen
"They Know" by Kealan Patrick Burke
"Goners" by Eric Christ
"I'm Dreaming Of..." by James S. Dorr
"Feral" by JG Faherty
"In Heavenly Peace" by Darren O. Godfrey
"Diseaseater" by Michael McBride
"The Little Church of Safe Crossing" by Joe McKinney
"Chillers" by Lisa Morton
"Miriam" by Kim Paffenroth
"Sarcophagus" by Stephen Mark Rainey
"The Illusion" by Bev Vincent

Some good company here. You may check out David Montoya's "Magus Press Diary" here.

Catching Up

There's no time like your wife being in surgery to catch up on some reading.

No, nothing real major this time. Peg's eyelids were drooping to the point they were cutting off her peripheral vision, so they did a trim job. She's recovering nicely.

I have gotten hopelessly behind in my reading this year. I've spared way too little time for it, and my eyes have gotten so worn out from the intensive computer work I do at my office job (not to mention my writing) that even when I have time, I can't read very long without going cross-eyed.

But while sitting in the waiting room, I took a few books with me, and number one on the list was Beth Massie's Brazen Bull — which has been sitting on the top of the stack for way too long.

This is a nicely produced little chapbook from White Noise Press, with illustrations by Keith Minnion. And if you've ever visited Beth Massie's home, you'll know immediately where the cover art came from.

Ms. Massie's characters are people we know. No; actually, they're just us — normal people living lives with ups and downs, the latter of which have overtaken the people in Brazen Bull to the point that they are close to falling apart. Down the street, an odd set of neighbors has moved in, and from our family's "reasonable" perspective, they seem rather sinister.

The story unfolds through the eyes of Dorrie, a teenage girl with a good heart but a perspective skewed by the darker thoughts of her troubled father. He's not one of those ubiquitous terrible men that often populate horror tales; the dark thoughts that run through his head are thoughts any of us might have if suffering his circumstances. Some are born of prejudice, some are born of desperation. Massie brings everything down to a personal level, putting us, as readers, right smack in the middle of the family's plight, and it makes us damned uncomfortable.

The resolution left me feeling a little hurt inside. Not due to any shortcoming but due to my caring enough about the characters to hope for them. But no, this is a Beth Massie story. She's going to take you into the darkness and make you feel it. And if you know her work, you know this going in.

Brazen Bull is very short, and it feels as if it ought to be bigger, or a part of something bigger. That's not a bad thing — just a result of the tale drawing me in so thoroughly and kicking me around a bit.

I'm not sure whether copies of the chapbook are still available, but it's a nice little package. If you can find one, grab it.

Cache In, Trash Out

Yesterday morning, I headed out to the Peninsula Trailhead, not far up the road, and joined with about 30 other geocachers for a cache-in, trash-out event. This was a pretty major cleanup of an area that had become nothing less than a trash dump over the years. The city donated a dumpster for use (see above), and at the end of the event, it was filled to capacity. I found what must have been someone's idea of a cache 50 years ago: a stash of bottles buried beneath a network of tree roots, a couple of which were still filled with their original contents (though I dare not guess what the stuff was). A few of the bottles looked quite interesting, and one young lady kept at least one of them for her collection. One soda bottle was labeled "Mission California," and I have no idea what product it actually contained.

Afterward, I joined up with my friend Cindy (whom I used to terrorize...er, uh...work with) and her friend Aimee for about a five-mile trail hike and caching expedition. Found six, which gave me a total of 99; then last night, Mrs. Death, our friends Paul and Jamie, and I went out for a few more, so I hit the landmark 100, plus a couple.

A novel plot is coming together from all this, though a fellow cacher said, "I know the kind of stuff you write. You can't do that to geocaching. You just can't!"

Well...we'll just have to see where things go, won't we? I'll give you the coordinates when they're available.

It's Better to Forgive, Right?

Last night, I came about as close to doing something I'd regret as I ever have. Peg and I were heading down the highway near our house, and as we approached the pedestrian bridge down the way, I saw three kids hanging out watching the cars. Just as we reached the bridge, one of them shoved a rock or a large bolt through the steel mesh, which hit the top of my car just above the windshield. At the next exit, I turned around and went back toward the scene, and I saw one of the kids coming down the road; at least, I'm 99% certain it was one of the little bastards. I mean, logistically, it's barely feasible that anyone else could have been on the road where he was given the time and distance of my turnaround. But it's that 1% doubt that stopped me from getting out and flailing the little fucker with the bamboo stick I keep for geocaching. Instead, we called the cops, who came out, checked out the damage, and filed a report, which will accomplish a whole lot of nothing, but it was the more prudent course of action. Evidently, the gangs use that bridge as a hangout and charge tolls for people to cross.

I know I'm in a minority, but personally, I think we ought to institute a National Shoot a Gang Member Day. Everyone gets a freebie. Something tells me it won't fly, though.

Tonight we spent an enjoyable evening with the neighbors, getting in some caching and having a cookout. It was a great way to move on.

Shellfish Behavior

A royalty check arrived from Wildside Books today. How handy, as Mrs. Death and I went out to a nice gathering of geocachers at J. Butler's bar & grill this evening. I killed off a passel of steamed oysters, sank a few Bass Ales, and logged a couple of caches. Also found a good-sized pearl in one of the oysters and lobbed it at Mrs. Death. It wasn't big enough to either do damage or particularly endear me to her, but I enjoyed it and would probably do it again.

AFK

It's been one of those weeks, so I've been fairly scarce at the usual online haunts. Actually, getting away from the computer for several extended periods this week has been a much-needed tonic. After being shackled to the one at the office for way too many hours, I've felt compelled to keep my time on my home machine to a minimum. Instead, I've been using multi-billion dollar military satellites to find Tupperware in the woods, along with my neighbors, Paul and Jamie, who have been bitten by the geocaching bug. The exercise has been great, and the lacerations, bruises, poison ivy, and bug bites from traipsing through the woods in the middle of the night are really quite invigorating.

However, in a disturbing repeat of events from two years ago, these past few days I've had several insects of the not-so-tasty variety buzz right down my throat. The one that got me today was fuzzy, bitter, and alive in my esophagus far longer than was comfortable. And as I was out hiking on a trail sans water bottle or any such luxury, I had nothing with which to wash him down.

Yes, gaak.

On the publishing front, Blue Devil Island has been remaindered by Thomson Gale/Five Star, so I ordered a bunch of copies to make sure I have some for future needs. And—gods willing—Other Gods ought to be appearing from Dark Regions in a few short weeks. Huzzah!

The Deluge

Next person who says we're still in the middle of a drought, I'm going to swat them in the head. If we're still short of water, it's due not to lack of rain but the flood of human beings into the area. We've gotten so much rain in the past few weeks I can't get the water out of my shoes. Even the ones put away in my closet.

However...

Rain does not stop the dedicated geocacher. I spent the weekend in Martinsville placing a number of caches, included one multi-stage cache, wherein the cache-seeker has to find a number of micros, each of which contains clues to the next location until they reach the final treasure (the most valuable bit of which is a Three Stooges golf ball). I was out Friday night till after midnight (in the rain, with no shoes) setting up the caches in uptown Martinsville, then most of the day Saturday. I dropped another one out there this morning.

Best thing of all though was encountering several geocachers today who were out looking for my hides. What a great bunch of folks; it was a real pleasure to meet them, and I hope we'll run into each other again in other secret places.

I also made time to go hiking and find a few caches myself (yes, in the rain, dammit), work up some promotional stuff for Other Gods (which will probably be out within the next month or so), spend time with my mom, and get together with my friends, the Albaneses.

Peg stayed home with the cats, so I'm sure she's had more than her hands full.

I've also committed to being a guest at ZombieCon III in Chapel Hill (October 25—the weekend before Halloween). Time and location to be announced, so stay tuned.

It Knows About You

Well, of course your cat does. That's what cats do. They know things. But tonight, we're talking about the Fugue Devil. If you know about it, it knows about you. And that usually spells trouble. Okay, not usually. Always.

Recently, Mr. Jack "Trouble" Kincaid, took a break from chopping wood (which he doesn't mind) and composed a couple of ambient monstrosities based on my story, "The Fugue Devil" (which will be appearing, along with its sequel and other weird horrors, in my upcoming collection, Other Gods).

I present the mp3s here, with Jack's permission.

It Knows About You

Heart of the Fugue Devil

I find these nice for playing in the dark while things are otherwise quiet. Nice atmosphere.

But now that you know about the Fugue Devil, and it knows about you, well...

'Tis better for cats to know.

#

When not being menaced by cats and Fugue Devils this week, I've been tearing up Greensboro hunting geocaches. Along with Mrs Death and our next door neighbors (the Travelin' Farm Family), I've racked up a fair number of finds this week, including a few that had me pretty well flummoxed for several days. I really enjoy getting out and seeing parts of town that I've never seen in my 20 years here; walking (sometimes considerable distances) every day, sometimes on sidewalks, sometimes on wooded trails, sometimes through creeks; and having to think creatively, usually to figure out just how the hell somebody came up with such a devious hiding place.

Tonight was a good one. It was raining in sheets, but the Farm Fam and I went straight out there, made a few finds (looking like drowned rats -- happy drowned rats, of course) , and then went out to Fisher's Bar & Grille for beer and chicken wings. At least the rain kept the muggles away.

April Fools Day

I fooled not a single soul today.

Five Out of Six...

...geocaches found after work today (plus one first thing this morning). Lots of hiking and bushwhacking involved, but it is teh awesome.

Remember Kill Jack Haringa Day in Your Blog a couple of weeks back? A number of these blasphemous blog entries, including yer own Damned Rodan's, will soon be appearing in a POD anthology, compiled by Nick Kaufman, titled Jack Haringa Must Die. Who'd have thunk such an offbeat idea might end up spreading not only to bunches o' blogs but into print—as if it were some kind of sincere tribute to Mssr. Crankypants? Holy Haringa, Batman.

Help

A slightly revised version of one of my earliest short stories, "Festival of the Jackal (Off Broadway)," will be appearing in the anthology Help, the proceeds from which will go to Preditors & Editors owner Dave Kuzminski's legal defense fund. On the off-chance you're here and not familiar with the case, "agent" Barbara Bauer ("agent" being in quotation marks because...well, take a guess) and Publish America have filed civil suits for libel against Mr. Kuzminski after he brought to light numerous (very well-founded) allegations against both and filed certain complaints, which riled the plaintiffs evidently no end. Preditors & Editors has a long and laudable history of keeping writers informed about the ever-expanding ranks of scammers in the publishing business, and I suppose it's inevitable that Mr. Kuzminski's unflinching efforts to expose the unscrupulous for what they are has made him the perfect target for retribution.

More info may be found here: Preditors & Editors lawsuit

Help is being published by Eric Enck and edited by Craig Phillips, with cover art by Daniele Serra. It's due to press in early May; there will be an electronic version as well. I'll post details about its availability when the details are available.

The Hunt

Not for eggs but for microcaches. In lieu of the traditional Easter egg hunt, Mrs. Death and I went out geocaching this afternoon. Found five in fairly short order, signed the logs, and re-hid 'em; only a thousand or so left to go in town. Today, the neatest one was in Green Hill Cemetery, a very old graveyard with loads of character. And no, the cache was not in a grave; no one wants to have their cache muggled by a corpse.

Pounded out a short-short tale this afternoon that I've been mulling over for a few days. Had an idea that was almost coming together, and today it finally did. Done, submitted, and fingers X'd.

This is the first Easter in I don't know how many years—probably since I lived in Chicago in the 80s—that the whole family didn't get together for at least the day. Circumstances conspired to keep us apart this year, but I did get to see my mom and brother (and find geocaches) last weekend. That was nice.

The grass got high this weekend. I foresee mowing in the nearest of futures...

The Pinocchio Lady

Sometimes I miss the days of making prank phone calls.

When I was between the ages of 10 and 15, give or take a decade or so, I was the diehard crank caller. Generally just harmless fun—you know, of the "I'm lost at the supermarket and I can't find my momma" ilk. Now and again, I made calls that made me feel bad later, such as when I presented myself as "Mother Bell" from radio station WDUM and promised the call recipient ten dollars for saying "hello" when he or she answered the phone. I got a lot of mailing addresses that way, and it grieves me to think that people were once so trusting. Needless to say, they never received a penny, and for this particular sin, I flagellated myself appropriately in later years. Or at least I allowed my wife to.

My favorite, though, was a series of calls I made in the summer and fall of 1973. I was 14 years old and was learning that I had inherited my dad's temper. Unlike Dad, I sometimes enjoyed acting on it and paying back tenfold certain people who offended me.

There was once a woman called the Pinocchio Lady. I found her by misdialing my friend Charles's phone number. When she answered, I thought it was his mother, so I asked for Charles. "Charles?!" exploded a very cranky, high-pitched, nasal voice. "There ain't no Charles here. And don't you ever, ever call this number again."

Ah. A challenge. Well, I called back the number I thought perhaps I had dialed by mistake, and sure enough, that was it. "Oh, it's you again!" she wailed. "I TOLD YOU TO NOT CALL HERE!"

"You sound like you have a really big nose," I said. "Are you the Pinocchio lady?"

"Pinocchio lady? I don't know what that is. You hang up RIGHT NOW and don't you EVER call back here again!"

Guess who called the Pinocchio lady day in and day out for many weeks. Yes, and when I told my friend Charles about this, he happily joined in the fun. We took turns calling and recording them with my little Lloyds cassette tape recorder. Usually, I'd start out pleasant, with something like, "Hello, have I reached the E****'s residence?" When the affirmative reply came, I'd holler, "No, I haven't! I've reached the Pinocchio lady!" One time, I told the poor woman I was going to cut off her long nose with a cross-cut saw, and that was how I learned some of the words that I use today when I'm really peeved.

Finally, one day, a gruff male answered. When I asked if he was the Pinocchio man, he said that he actually wasn't, but that he was going to have the phone tapped so he could find out who we "damned little pests" were. That scared me a little, so I didn't call back for a couple of days.

Eventually, we grew tired of this sport and moved on to calling the parents of kids we didn't like and telling them that their children had stolen some copies of Playboy magazine from the local newsstand and hidden them under their mattresses. (I have no idea how many of them actually got caught with hidden copies of Playboy.)

Over a decade later, when I lived in Chicago, one day, just on a whim, I dialed the Pinocchio lady's number (it was still firmly etched into my memory, and I still remember it to this day), and when Mrs. E****'s familiar voice answered, I almost...almost...followed through with the cruel quip, "Hey, Pinocchio lady. Remember me? I'm out now!"

But I didn't. Some wee smidgen of maturity had taken a bit of the pleasure out of injecting a little misery into some innocent person's life.

If Mrs. E**** is still alive (something tells me she's not, as she sounded not only big-nosed but rather old back in the 70s and 80s), she does have my sincerest apology. I was just a kid doing what kids do, and sometimes that's not so nice.

Of course, there's always the possibility that, on some level, she had as much fun being a Pinocchio lady as we had turning her into one. I rather hope so.

Nothing in Life Is Certain Except Death From Taxes

Gaah. I hates me some income taxes. Been working on them the last couple of nights. Looks like we're pretty much breaking even this year—which is better than paying the government a bundle, but on the other hand...no extra spending money.

Did some enjoyable nighttime geocaching with Mrs. Death this evening. Went around some of the nearby business areas at which little microcaches have been hidden. Had some success—most notably finding a nanocache the size of a pencil eraser stuck to a beam on the back of a building. At one location, we found what we thought would be a cache, but it was not a cache, so we immediately put it back and vacated the premises, in case the not-quite-a-cache belonged to some hooligan named Luigi, who might have been spying on us from a distance.

Returned home and immediately heard the clatter of gunfire from the street behind us (which is not all that uncommon an occurrence); we're pretty sure it wasn't Luigi, though, as we're both still around to be taxed to death.

Stellarcon Done, More Caching In

Stellarcon turned out pretty good this year, though it started off slowly on Friday evening, with a non-existent audience for what I thought might be an intriguing panel—"Zines: All the Reasons NOT To, and Why You'll Do It Anyway." Now I can only imagine how many misguided souls are going to go off half-cocked to start a magazine, when—if they had bothered to come to the panel—they could go off cocked, locked, and thoroughly fucked up.

Saturday began with one of Allen Wold's writing workshops, in which the participants write the hook to a short story in a hundred words or less. Overall, not bad stuff this year, though the workshop was situated not in one of the usual conference rooms but in a suite on the second floor—which meant we panelists had the privilege of running the workshop while standing or leaning against the wall instead of sitting in plush leather chairs. Thanks a million.

The rest of the panels I was on were well attended. The "Kaiju" panel, moderated by former Stellarcon organizer and major Godzilla fan Bill Mann, was a hoot and could have gone on for several hours. My booksigning turned out to be a good one; in fact, I ended up signing quite a few autographs over the course of the weekend. Not sure what's up with that. (Maybe my work attracts masochists?)

Finally, my deepest apologies to those who came to my reading last night only to find the author a no-show. He was stuck at a dinner event that stretched out far longer than anticipated, with no wheels of his own to get him back to the hotel. I trust no one was so broken-hearted that they will stop buying my books forever, or turn into Klingons, or something similarly radical. It would not have been an entertaining experience anyway; after such a severe and prolonged bout with bronchitis, my voice was actually beginning to fail by 8:00 PM last night.

All things considered, Stellarcon has outgrown the High Point Radisson, and I wish the organizers would bring it back to the downtown Greensboro Marriott. I realize it's more expensive, but the High Point hotel is hopelessly inadequate, with its two feeble elevators (sometimes necessitating a wait of fifteen minutes or more just to go up or down a single floor), no stairs available from the first floor, the slowest restaurant service in the southeast, inadequate parking facilities, and no other eating/drinking establishments of any worth within reasonable walking distance. I cannot imagine that there aren't better alternatives to this pain-in-the-ass location for a con.

Today, I went out and about geocaching in Martinsville. Found two nice ones and hid my first cache, in a neat location just outside of town; it should be listed on the geocaching site within the next few days. I've found just about all the Martinsville caches now (there are a couple of others I'll get to soon). There are only several hundred in Greensboro, though, so I doubt I will exhaust them anytime soon.

There were two in close proximity to the hotel in High Point, but as it rained the whole time, I didn't go out looking for them.

How to Thoroughly Devalue the Limited Edition of Your Upcoming Book

In my case, sign the signature sheets.

Done, and shipped back to the publisher. In fact, cover artist Wayne Miller and I met for dinner last night, and he signed the sheets for the lettered edition. So Other Gods is that much closer to completion, and I expect that by May it will be running loose on the streets. Almost certainly, I will have copies to take to Mo*Con with me in June. I can bean unsuspecting passersby with them.*

*For this activity, I shall require the hardcover edition.

StellarCon Schedule

I'll be a guest at StellarCon/DeepSouthCon at the Downtown Radisson in High Point, NC, this weekend (3/14–3/15). In case you're dead-set on avoiding me at all costs, here's my schedule.

Friday
"Zines: All the Reasons NOT To, and Why You'll Do It Anyway"
9:00–10:00 P.M.

Saturday
Allen Wold's World of Writing (Writing Workshop, reservations only)
11:00 A.M.–1:00 P.M.

"The World of Kaiju"
2:00–3:00 P.M.

Signing (with Val Griswold-Ford)
4:00–5:00 P.M.

"How to Annoy Your Publisher"
5:00–6:00 P.M.

Reading ("The Jack-o'-Lantern Memoirs")
8:00–9:00 P.M.

I won't be there on Sunday, so that may be your safest bet to attend. For those unable to run away fast enough, I'll look forward to seeing you. If you're not careful, I'll devalue your books with an autograph.

Clockses

In this day and age, resetting the clocks is stupid. Daylight Savings Time or the other, I care not which, but it oughta be left alone. So there.

It's Kill Jack Haringa in Your Blog Day

So...

Since dressing himself that morning, Haringa had felt his pants getting crankier, so it seemed appropriate that he assuage their orneriness by getting them laid.

"We prefer virgin wool," they told him. He shuddered, for they were either unaware or cared not at all about his deep-rooted aversion to sheeply things. But with his ass having been chapped so thoroughly over the course of the day, he was beginning to think a woolly solution might yet be acceptable .

He remembered that the missus often shopped at Wictoria's Sucret, and it was odds-on that they would have something to satisfy his drawers' virginal cravings. Thus, he set out with guardedly high hopes, trying his best to ignore the discomfort as his pants rode up time and again.

"I would like something in virgin wool," he said to the saleslady, who responded with a questioning look. "It's not for me, it's for my pants," he explained.

The rather stern-faced young woman glanced down, raised an eyebrow, and conjugated something silently. "So, they're quite cranky, are they?"

"It's their nature."

"How did you find us?" the woman asked. "We're not on any map."

"Dead reckoning."

"Angora?"

Haringa glanced down as one of his cuffs rose to attention. "Acceptable."

The woman handed him a bundle of fuzzy pink fabric. It was soft to the touch, though vile in every other way. His hands were shaking as he took it from her.

"Mind you don't get seduced."

"It's for my pants."

"Yeah, that's right. That's $49.97, including tax."

He paid with cash, as a credit card bill from Wictoria's would arouse suspicion at home.

Alas, it mattered none at all, for when Haringa reached home, the missus was waiting for him. When she saw the relaxed crease in his trousers, she gonged him in the head with her frying pan.

They buried him pantsless, in an ungrammatical coffin. The angora was never seen again, but it wasn't long before Joshi, many miles distant, began to look pained.

Wacky Packages

If you're an old fart like me, you might remember Wacky Packages. They were cards and stickers produced by Topps that depicted popular products of the day—with a bit of a twist. Clever and irreverent, they ended up plastered all over our school, our books, our bicycle seats, our lunch boxes...you name it; anywhere you could stick a Wacky Packages sticker, there you'd find one. I remember getting a set on Halloween (1968, I think it was) and being grossed out by the image of an adhesive bandage—"Band-Ache" brand, it was called—graphically ripping the skin off the back of some poor fellow's hand. A picture of bugs hopping out of a hole in an ugly woman's head, which appeared on the front of the "Spray Nit" hair infester spray can, just about put me off my Halloween dinner (which was a Hardee's hamburger). After seeing masses of worms crawling around inside the "Skimpy" peanut butter jar, I pretty much lost my taste for peanut butter for several years.

But I loved those cards something fierce. They were special. The art was irresistible, the play on real products was brilliant, and kids who had Wacky Packages stickers on the covers of their school notebooks were guaranteed to be cool.

A while back, I went looking on the Internet for info about Wacky Packages, and I found a few good sites, the best being www.wackypackages.org, which features a complete index of the sets, along with images. If anything, I probably have more appreciation for these things than I did back in the day; there's little I'd love more than to find some of those cards buried within the boxes of ancient goodies that remain in the attic back at the old homestead, though I fear they've long since vanished. (I'm pretty sure I traded at least some of them away for Hot Wheels cars, which, back in the day, made perfect sense, though nowadays I'd much rather have the cards than the cars.)

If you have a soft spot for irreverent and slightly icky fun stuff, check out the Wacky Packages index. If you're old like me, maybe they'll bring back some enjoyable memories.

As for other events, this afternoon after work, I went seeking a few geocaches here in town (there are thousands of them). Most of the ones in this area are micros, meaning they're tiny cylinders, cleverly hidden, containing log sheets to sign when you find them. I found three of the five I was seeking; the areas where other two were located were brimming with muggles (non-geocaching indigenous personnel), which precluded any searching. I shall have to venture forth at an hour when muggles ought to be fewer and farther between.