Cemetery with Falling Teeth (vignette)

Illustration by Thomas Stetson 

I was on my way to school on that ashen morning when my teeth started coming loose. My backpack was too heavy and my head bowed down. I spit out a tooth and it landed in a puddle of mud at my feet, its white like ice, like hail. I swallowed the next ones out of fear and shame. I avoided biting and kept my mouth slightly open, but my tongue was restless and it kept pushing at them. On my way, I met two of my classmates, my usual companions, and gave them a tight-lipped smile. They weren’t talking much anyway, burdened by their packs, not fully awake. It was foggy and started to drizzle. We made our way down the familiar streets, between the usual gray apartment buildings, mud sticking to our boots, as heavy as silence.

There was construction on one of the streets. Beyond the orange barricades, the street was now a giant crater, extending to the foundation of one of the structures. Was that building sinking slowly? I couldn’t tell for sure, but it didn’t look straight. When we negotiated our detour I remembered I had to recite a poem in class. My heart sank. How was I to recite with no teeth? I’d be a laughingstock. Panicked, I lagged behind my classmates and darted inside one of the buildings. I ran up the steps to the top floor and huddled up in a corner, my tongue still working at dislodging my front teeth. Doors opened and closed below me, steps descended, whispering shadows, people going to work. 

I waited as more teeth fell. Their roots snapped and sent jolts to my brain, like earthquakes just behind your eyes. I pressed my lips tight and fought back tears.

When I felt that the class has started I went out on the muddy streets, my legs unsure where to take me. I couldn’t go back home. My mom would yell at me for skipping school and losing all my teeth. She’d say I must be contaminated and would take me to the hospital, leaving me there with strangers, needles, and scalpels. Those green walls and nauseating smells, the eternal waiting. It was worse than being on the playground when no one wanted to play with you. The hospital was a deserted playground with barbed wire.

I found myself in the cemetery. The rain picked up, hard. Through the deluge, I saw a hole waiting in front of a marble cross. The earth under it softened, and the cross started to lean over. Finally, it fell inside the muddy hole with a wet thud, just as I spit out my last tooth.  

Axl Barnes' Strangled Epitaphs

Review of Curtis Lawson's The Envious Nothing

I  remember having high expectations for Curtis Lawson's The Envious Nothing. They were surpassed
and pulverized. This is a rare treat for horror fans as Lawson expertly integrates elements of body horror, psychological horror, folk, and supernatural horror in a style firmly rooted in Lovecraftian cosmic horror.  In his earlier volume, Black Pantheons, Lawson claims that "Cosmicism is a literary philosophy that suggests we live in a vast, indifferent universe, devoid of any cosmic father figure. If you take it a bit further it is the view that the universe and any higher intelligence within it, is actually malevolent in nature." That early volume features many stories of trickster demons and other supernatural entities bent on torturing humans both physically and mentally. 

In Devil's Night and The Envious Nothing, Lawson departs gradually from that initial characterization of cosmicism and offers a more complex picture of human nature and its relationship with the supernatural. There's a certain moral ambiguity that permeates some of these stories. In "Orphan" or "The Rye-Mother" the main characters are misfits who want to find a place to belong, a place outside the confines of the ordinary world, and beings from beyond the natural order offer their help. In addition, evil becomes more diffuse, so much so it turns into nothing, but it's a dynamic and dangerous Nothing. Lawson doesn't go as far as B.R, Yeager in Negative Space, to strip these otherworldly forces of any human characteristics. Nothingness is described as envious, hungry, vengeful, although those properties are immense and grotesque in comparison to their human counterparts. Lawson here echoes ancient creation myths from the Sumero-Babylonian to the Norse traditions.  The goddess Tiamat is famously described as a primordial abyss, beyond space and time, life and death, both life-giving and vengeful and destructive. By introducing Nothingness as a malevolent force Lawson takes us to the limit of our conceptual scheme, to the realm of paradox, the point where ancient mythology merges with modern physics. If Nothing is envious isn't it Something? Isn't envy a property or a predicate that requires a subject, a substance to have it? How can something be envious while outside space and time? Don't emotions have duration, a certain feel to them? Lawson's power as a horror writer lies in being able to weave imaginative, evocative stories around these perennial cognitive cramps and conceptual dead-ends, and to vividly express that which cannot be told.

I enjoyed all stories in this volume as the author not only spins original tales but uses a variety of literary techniques and forms to deliver them. The reader is never bored and kept on his toes. Stories like "Elvis and Isolde" are so well-crafted that you probably need a strong cup of coffee before delving into them.  The stories that will remain tattooed on my brain are "The Happiest Place on Earth" (it reads like a mix of Stephen King's The Mist and The Girl who Loved Tom Gordon, steeped in deep, thick melancholy), "Secretes of the Forbidden Kata," The Rye Mother" (I have a soft spot for amoral elitist characters and the imagery is stunning) and "The Truth about Vampires," (this one's aggressive weirdness and demented depravity reminded me of Nicole Cushing's "Mr. Suicide") As a small lament, I think some of these stories deserved a larger canvass, maybe a novella or even novel treatment. For instance, "Monsters have no Place in the World to Come," a story about the Hitler Youth, could easily grow into a novel in the vein of Lord of the Flies set against the desolate background of a ruined Berlin. All in all, I warmly recommend this darkly beautiful and challenging book!

Trailer for Stillborn Gallery

Intro to Stillborn Gallery

Interview with horror writer B.R. Yeager

B.R. Yeager's Negative Space was a mind-blowing surprise of the same magnitude as Curtis Lawson's Black Heart Boy's Choir and Nicole Cushing's Mr. Suicide. All of these novels vividly capture teenage angst and courageously follow their characters into the mouth of madness, to the point where the cold edge of the blade cuts through tender skin. B.R. Yeager does away with the cannon of mainstream horror—the building of suspense to a climax, the protagonist vs. antagonist dichotomy, detailed analysis of the main character's motives and thinking—and reads more like the account of a collective bad trip, the chronicle of the gradual physical and psychological ruination of a group of teens in the small town of Kinsfield. From the outset, we learn that Kinsfield is plagued by a wave of teen suicides. Tyler, the main character, wants to contact the sinister supernatural forces behind that wave, with the help of hallucinogens and black magic. We only learn about Tyler through the lenses of those close to him and can only speculate about the motives behind his erratic and often self-destructive behavior. Reckless and cruel, Tyler is ready to sacrifice himself and those around him in his attempt at transcending his humanity. As with any act of hubris, Tyler is physically and spiritually mutilated by the malignant forces he summoned. The gloomy story and morbid imagery in Negative Space project a thick sense of mystery and doom similar to what you experience while watching a David Lynch film. The nightmarish dreamscapes are like the surrealist landscapes of Dali, and reflect hidden symbols and archetypes. Negative Space is a hypnotic book, with an almost subliminal rhythm and sound it calls us to explore the network of caves and catacombs below consciousness.

Mr. Yeager was kind enough to answer some questions for my blog. 

Axl: First, Mr. Yeager, congratulations on writing such an amazing novel! Although it is very stylized, the reader can guess it's partly rooted in personal experience. Can you please share with us some of the biographical sources of the novel, as well as giving us a sense of its literary influences? 

B.R. Yeager: While I would definitely agree that much of Negative Space is rooted in lived experience, it’s much more complicated than it being strictly biographical. The short version is that the book emerged in response to a close friend’s suicide. Beyond that, there are bits and pieces of experiences taken from my own life, or the lives of people I’ve known, or things I’ve observed, and integrated into the story. But ultimately, it’s all been smeared together in a way that makes it completely fictional. 

Major literary influences would include Kathe Koja’s The Cipher, Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes, Dennis Cooper’s My Loose Thread, Grace Krilanovich’s The Orange Eats Creeps, Philip K. Dick’s Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said, The Kybalion by Three Initiates, Blake Butler’s 300,000,000, Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher,” and John Keel’s The Mothman Prophecies. 

Axl: Negative Space seems to fit the subgenre of cosmic horror but at the same time is wildly transgressive and subversive in both content and structure. Where would you place it in the landscape of contemporary horror fiction? 

B.R. Yeager: I have no idea. Honestly, I feel a bit out of step with—or at least not particularly knowledgeable—about the contemporary horror landscape. I tend to have a very broad and personal conception of horror as a genre, which would likely include works that many wouldn’t label as horror. Ultimately, I don’t think it’s my place to square Negative Space into any particular realm within the genre, though cosmic horror and transgressive fiction seem like appropriate tags. 

Axl: In the novel, you introduce the concept of mind without life. The way I understand it, the mind emerges in the brain but it can emerge in any kind of dead matter that has a certain pattern. Is it fair to say that Tyler dies but also preserves his consciousness? Can we still say that he's alive, but more like an astral body? 

B.R. Yeager: I’m becoming more and more hesitant to answer any clarifying questions about the text, not to be an asshole, but mainly because I think any answers I give will be infinitely less interesting than the questions being posed. I will say that this interpretation is a valid one. 

Axl: As a Satanic hero or anti-hero, Tyler seems consumed by the desire for power and control. Is it fair to say that he was used and then discarded by the higher negative force engulfing the town of Kinsfield? Also, did you focus on a group of teenagers because teens are more receptive to the actions of supernatural forces? 

B.R. Yeager: I think you’re correct in that Tyler is more a conduit than an original agitator. I’m not sure I would go as far as to say he was being used by the higher forces at play, as that implies those forces possess a somewhat anthropomorphic will, which I’m not entirely sure is the case. I’d say it’s more akin to a large stone placed in the middle of a stream. The stone diverts the water, but the water is not aware of this action, nor is the water aware of this change (as far as we know). But I could be wrong.

 

(I realize this uncertainty on my part may seem strange. But with this book I wanted to write about the Unknown, and in order to truly do so, it was essential that I kept myself in the dark regarding the inhuman forces at play). 

There were two main reasons I focused on teens. The first was that I wanted to write a horror novel in the tradition of “kids on bikes uncover nefarious forces,” i.e. Stephen King’s IT, or the film The Gate, etc. The second (and more practical) reason is that there has been far less drama and “excitement” (if one could call it that) in my adult life than there was in my teens and early 20s. By making the main characters teens, I had more experiences worth drawing from, in terms of drama. 

Axl: While the novel avoids a standard good vs. evil plot, and there are lots of gray areas, Tyler seems to be at the darker end of the spectrum and Lu at the lighter end. There's also a distinction between the moths and wasps that accompany a nefarious act and the bees that are present when something "positive" takes place. Can you comment a bit about the mythological symbolism of these insects or what made you use them? 

B.R. Yeager: I’m genuinely not sure I can speak to the insects’ relation to broader mythologies. Ultimately, I think these insects are very personal manifestations of aspects of the characters who invoke them. In the book, I did want the divine or the beyond to be accessible through a number of methods and ritual, not a single dogmatic practice, as I believe this to true in reality. As a result, all the magickal or spiritual practices occurring in the book are very personal in nature, and outside of a dogmatic framework or formal institutions. 

Axl: What are your writing plans for 2021? 

B.R. Yeager: Right now I’m co-writing a low-budget horror film directed by Nick Verdi (https://twitter.com/Verdi___Nick) that I’m very excited about. I don’t think I can say much now, but I feel like it’s in a similar vein of a lot of great low-budget debuts, like Abel Ferrera’s The Driller Killer, or Wes Craven’s Last House on the Left, or Gaspar Noe’s I Stand Alone. 

I also have a short story in Hymns of Abomination, which is a forthcoming anthology tribute to Matthew Bartlett, published by Silent Motorist Media. Bartlett is from my hometown, and primarily writes about a fictionalized version of it, so it was fun to play with that world. I’m also in the early stages of my next novel, but that’s likely 3-5 years away. 

Follow B.R. Yeager on Twitter @BRYeager

Interview with horror writer Curtis Lawson

Illustrator Luke Spooner from Carrion House

I've first encountered Curtis Lawson's fiction last year and was blown away by his novel Black Heart Boys' Choir. Lucien Beaumont, the main character, is a musical prodigy who discovers an unfinished song composed by his dead father. Obsessed with completing the song Lucien starts playing a damnation game with the demon Amduscias. I think of this novel as a perfect work, like Athens coming out whole from Zeus' forehead. Lawson's style carries a mathematical beauty and elegance, but at the same time is visceral and emotionally dizzying. When Lawson started promoting his new book, Devil's Night, the title shot up to the top of my TBR list. Devil's Night is a collection of horror stories centered around the legend that every year, the night before Holloween, Detroit, the Motor City, becomes possessed by demonic forces of chaos and destruction. The book is a rocking eruption of original writing fuelled by a devilish imagination. I'd compare it with classics like Clive Barker's Books of Blood or Stephen King's Night Shift as well as more recent works like Joe Hills's 20th Century Ghosts. Curtis was kind enough to answer some questions about his new book and his writing plans.

Axl: On social media, you mentioned Sin City and The Crow as inspirations for Devil's Night. What other books or movies inspired you? And what makes Devil's Night stand out?

Curtis: One of the things I wanted to do with Devil’s Night was explore several different types of horror stories while keeping them tied together in theme and with a loosely connected narrative. The idea for having the stories loosely connect definitely stems from Sin City, but the individual stories all draw from different inspirations.

80’s horror films were a big influence, No One Leaves The Buther Shop being the most notable example of that. Through Hell for One Kiss draws heavily from The Crow. I pretty much lifted the structure of Trashfire Stories from a Batman animated short.

The biggest influence outside of Sin City is probably The Willows by Algernon Blackwood. I wanted to make the environment itself antagonistic, and The Willows is the most exceptional example of that kind of thing that I can think of. The Graveyard of Charles Robert Swede is a direct homage to The Willows.

I suppose I probably drew on IT in regards to creating my version of Detroit. King’s town of Derry is a character in and of itself and I find it to be the best part of the book. 

What makes it different? I think the shared lore and the way in which the stories are woven together makes it stand out from a lot of other short story collections. If I did my job right, the stories also present important questions and shine a light on sensitive issues without judgment or bullshit platitudes. I find it the job of the writer to get people to think, but never tell them what to think.

Axl: In Hideaway Dean Koontz describes Vassago as a rebellious teen whose dark mind attracts a demon, resulting in demon possession. In  Black Heart Boys’ Choir, we have more of a collaboration or pact between Lucien and the demon Amduscias. In Devil's Night, it seems that most characters are trapped by an inescapable demonic force. How do you see, in general, the relation between demonic forces and a character's will? Does the character still exercise any free will? 

Curtis: I suppose it depends on the story. Koontz clearly intended for his demon to be a real thing, so I think Vassago had less free will. It’s been a long time since I revisited Hideaway, so I can’t speak with strong authority on that.  

The dynamic between Lucien and Amduscias in Black Heart Boys’ Choir is different. I leave it intentionally ambiguous as to if the demon is real, but beyond that, even if the reader decides that Amduscias is real in story terms, the character is still a symbol of Lucien’s obsessions, resentments, and trauma.

I suppose there is a question of free will there, but it’s more of a battle between Lucien’s ID (Amduscias) and his ego (Lucien himself). The lack of an avatar for his superego represents how he was failed by society and his parents. That moral compass is simply absent.

I tried to show that by having the adults fail him in some large or small way in each encounter. That’s also why there is no direct dialog from Lucien’s mother and why she pretty much stays hidden away in her room for the entire book. 

Axl: Black Heart Boys’ Choir seems rooted in your personal experiences as an artist struggling for aesthetic perfection. Are some stories in Devil's Night also inspired by personal experiences?

Curtis: Black Heart Boys’ Choir was the most deeply personal thing I’ve ever written. That book was very emotionally autobiographical, and a few of the scenes mirror actual events from my childhood. It was cathartic to write, but it was also emotionally exhausting.

Devil’s Night was a nice change of pace because I wasn’t as intimately attached to the stories. 

D20 is inspired by some childhood friends who grew up in a similar situation to the boys in that story. Breaking Wheel captures my yearning to escape the shitty neighborhoods I lived in and to build a new life away from all that. A Night of Art and Excess ties into the unearned sense of elitism I felt as a teenager– the belief that I was destined for and entitled to bigger and better things and that the world just didn’t understand. 

Those are probably the most personal stories. The rest are just made up of insights and fantasies. 

Axl: Stories like Fire Sermon, This City Needs Jesus, An Angel in Amber Leaves, or The Exorcism of Detroit, Michigan seem to convey an anti-Christian message in the sense that those who want to carry out the work of God seem themselves evil, and angels become demons. But at the same time, a lot of Christian imagery is employed in describing the Devil's Night as a night when the gates of Hell are open. So, I wonder, if you strip away the Christian outlook, what's bad about the Devil's Night. And in what sense does it belong to the devil? 

Curtis: I don’t think I did any of that intentionally… or I guess I wasn’t consciously thinking “Let’s demonize religion.” That being said, I’ve never had much love for the Abrahamic faiths. That shines through in a lot of my work, perhaps to my detriment at times.

As I enter middle-age I’ve grown more tolerant of religion and have even found some allegorical value in Abrahamic myths that I used to abhor, but I think I’ll always have a bit of a chip on my shoulder in that regard.

That being said, I want to express that my problems with religion don’t necessarily extend to the religious. I actually find it quite unfortunate how chic it is to mock people for their belief in God or their adherence to religious tradition.

As for Devil’s Night, I think it is a little glimpse into a much more literal hell than the apostles or Dante ever show us. Have you ever known a really messed up person? A hard drug addict or a career criminal? For people like that every moment is hell because their minds are a minefield of insecurity, resentment, and rage. The real Devil’s Night was an expression of that. It’s the personal hell inside of hundreds of people bleeding into the real world in a tangible way. 

Axl: What are your plans for 2021?

Curtis: I have three short stories scheduled to be published, one in the second issue of S. T. Joshi’s Penumbra journal. I’ll also be publishing a new Adze (a character introduced in Devil’s Night) short story each month via my Patreon page.

For bigger projects, I’m working on a novella for a shared universe project that I can’t really talk about, but that I am extremely excited for. I will say that I get to share a pretty exclusive TOC with a few of my favorite authors. I actually have this huge case of impostor syndrome going into the project, but I hope it gives me a chance to prove that I belong there.

I’ll also be writing my next novel for Weird House Press which is my first deep dive into the Lovecraft Mythos. I’ve been reluctant to play in that sandbox given my deep love for it, but I think I have something interesting to bring to the party. 

You can order Devil's Night here: https://www.weirdhousepress.com/product/devils-night/

You can find Curtis Lawson on Twitter @c_lawson

Instagram @curtismlawson

Facebook @curtismlawson