In Dream...#3

It is night. I drive into the parking lot of a multiplex movie theater that I recognize. I want to gauge my bearings. The lot is surrounding by a huge shadowy hedge, so I can't make out the streets. I exit my car to ask directions in the movie theater. The concession stands are empty but well-lit and well-stocked. Fresh popcorn is popping. No one mans the cash registers. There are five double-door entrances to the five movie theaters. 

I enter the movie theater to the far left, by the door leading to the parking lot. The movie is playing, but it is not familiar. There are a few people scattered throughout the huge seating area. I walk along the empty back row till I reach the other side, where a red curtain sways under a blast from the air-conditioner. The drapes part and I see another theater next door, a duplicate of this theater. I enter that theater, hoping for a familiar movie, but the lights go on. The movie just ended. I sit in the back row and wait for the next screening. 

Somehow, I know the theater is about to close, so I retrace my path back to the parking lot. My car is gone. I walk through the hedge until I reach the street. I wait for the bus. It comes quickly but its marquee has no destination listed, only a number 111. I ask the driver is this bus is headed to L.A. He nods yes. I don't believe him, but I decide to sit down. The aisle leading to my seat is too long for such a small bus. The farther back I walk, the more young people I see vandalizing the seats. I ring the bell to signal I want to get off the bus. 

The bus pulls over, and I get off. Those damn hedges reach all the way over here. No wonder I lost my car. I walk through the hedges and enter the same parking lot. There's one car parked in the lot. It's not my car, but my car key works to start the engine. I am low on gas. Once I figure out where I live, I'll know if I need to stop for gas. 

I drive past the bus. The vandals have their faces pressed against the glass, looking at me. I can't seem to pass the bus, no matter what I try. The faces start to protrude through the glass, twists and contorts into other shapes, but their eyes never leave me. That hedge is following me. The gas is almost at empty. It is best to wake up. 

I choose to leave the dream. I am in bed, but I don't recognize the room. At least I'm out of the car. I turn on my right side and dig my head into the pillow. The last thing I see in the bedroom before I leave my dream within a dream is that hedge. At that moment, I know where I am, but it's too late: I'm back in the car, back in the parking lot, the gas tank is on empty. 

The next thing I know is it is morning. Time for coffee. Time to write this down before I forget.

 

Obsession (2025)

Review by Anthony Servante

The tradition of obsessive love has kept us entertained with its various incarnations for many years via many forms of media, from short stories, comic books, and TV shows. But I would probably point to The Chaser by John Collier as the catalyst for the skewed vision of our romantic theme. 

The story has appeared in Tales from the Crypt  comic and TV show, and, most famously, on The Twilight Zone. The story deals with a man who loves a woman who doesn't love him and only show mild interest in him at all. The man buys a "love potion", slips it to the woman, and the woman falls in love with him. But not just love, but full blown obsession. In the TZ episode, the only way to end the woman's obsession is to poison her with a "chaser". But that's as far as the "horror" of the episode goes.

In Tales from the Crypt, the title of the story is Loved to Death.  The man, in this case, is a writer who loves his neighbor as the embodiment of a character in his story. He acquires the love potion, administers it to his neighbor, and she falls in love with him with an obsessive lust that she cannot quench and which he cannot keep up with. He gets the poison, accidentally drinks it himself, and the neighbor commits suicide. The writer and his neighbor meet again in the afterlife, where she is disfigured due to her jumping out of the tall building, and she continues to lust after the writer for eternity. 

In the movie, Obsession, the story basically follows a similar script, except the character of the girl has moments of awareness that she has been possessed somehow. She obsesses after the man who "wished" for her love, but in brief glimpses of herself in reflections, she is horrified to see how she's behaving. When she doesn't see herself in the reflections, she is not only consumed by her love for the man, she commits horrid acts to keep the man to herself in a scary jealousy. The ending is a mix of The Chaser and Loved to Death, but with consequences we the audience do not see coming. 

For the next story to try to take this tale of love and obsession one step further, it will have to do something totally surprising, or, at least, non-traditional. But for now, Obsession takes this genre to a new place that's worth a visit. 

 

Quacky

by JIm Woodring

Review by Anthony Servante

Introduction:

"Jim Woodring pays homage to the classic Big Little Book format to put his silent signature character through his most transformative adventure ever.Jim Woodring has been drawing the otherworldly, allegorical adventures of his cartoon Everycreature, Frank, for three and a half decades. These stories are a singular rarity in the comics form ― both bone-chillingly physical in their depictions of Frank's travails and profoundly metaphysical at the same time. Not since George Herriman's Krazy Kat has the comics language been so exquisitely distilled into pure, revelatory aesthetic expression.

With Quacky, Woodring adopts the format of 1930s Big Little Books to deliver a text story with illustrations, in which the typically nonplussed Frank’s reactions are told to us explicitly, through narration and his own thoughts. Frank is buffeted by generosity, anguished to see how loving friends perceive him, distraught by the process of aging and physical transformation in a beloved pet, delighted by nature and physical experiences shared with others, and ultimately sees a path toward radical acceptance in the face of trauma.

Frank cast regulars Pupshaw, Pushpaw and Manhog are here, along with new entries to Frank’s world of the Unifactor. And, in a backup feature, we meet a cast of toontown pigs in a story that undercuts the kiddie book format: “Hoggy Goes Hogwild.” Cunningham, the clever pig who helps all his friends, and his confirmed fiancée, Porceline, are called on to assist local pal Hoggy – who turns out to have gone on a violent crime spree, presaging a possible psychotic break.

Jim Woodring is back, and no two worlds wouldn’t be the same without him.

Black-and-white illustrations throughout. "

Review

For those of you familiar with Jim Woodring's world, Unifactor, where its residents include Frank, his pets, Pupshaw and Pushpaw, neighbor Manhog, plus all the regulars, you are no doubt accustomed to artwork with no narrative. The visuals tell the story that unfolds via a landscape which combines pastoral vistas offset by surreal architecture. It takes a while to figure out what's plant, animal, or artifact. But through it all, our hero, Frank, goes about his daily life with mundane regularity like a hermit living in the world of the fantastic as if it were a normal lifestyle, which plays against the supernatural world of the Unifactor. 

And there's the rub. The supernatural becomes normal as the normal becomes surreal. We know this because we see the story of Frank unfold in panels. No one tells us what is happening. Only our imaginations fill in the gaps in our comprehension, for instance, when our hero lifts a bizarre-looking item from a table, and we don't know if it is food or animal until the next panel reveals what Frank does with the item. We wonder at the development of the story with curiosity about what Frank will do next or what will happen to Frank next. Woodring designs his panels in such a way to keep the movement going to maximize our curiosity and reward us with amazement. 

In Quacky, Woodring reduces his panels to illustrations for his narrative. He tells us what to see, and then he shows us what he said. Now, don't get me wrong: The narrative and the illustrations work together in a new way for Woodring's storytelling. Although he utilizes the "Big Little Book" format, he manages to keep the "wordless" story intact. I won't say the narrative and the illustrations are redundant, but I also cannot say the narrative can stand on its own, as it can in the Big Little Books of old. 

This doesn't make the read any less marvelous. We still get a Frank story in our favorite world, the Unifactor. We meet our old friends on a wondrous adventure. The surreal nature and curiosity are still present. It's just that I cannot say that we are getting more from the story with the "words", but, at least, we're not getting less. Jim Woodring still delivers us a great tale, and lovers of his work can marvel at that.

 

A Reverse Movie Review

The Catharsis of Crystal May Creasey

by Anthony Servante

The Hunt (2020)

Starring Betty Gilpin

The Hunt (2020), starring Betty Gilpin and Hilary Swank concerns a group of conservative social influencers being hunted by a group of liberal executives. That's the movie you see, but the real movie revolves around Crystal May Creasey. I want to tell her story, which has nothing to do with the two groups of political combatants. 

Crystal May Creasey served in the U.S. Army. When she returned to civilian life, she had trouble finding employment and had to settle for a job at Ranger Car Rental place where she is belittled by customers. She puts up with the bad treatment and bottles in her anger, disappointment, and retaliation in order to keep her job. Then she gets kidnapped. 

Crystal May being flipped off by customer at car rental.

In a case of mistaken identity Crystal May is mixed up with Crystal Mae (with an "e"), a political podcaster known as "Justice For Y'all". Crystal May wakes up with several others by a cache of weapons and is hunted down. She doesn't know what is going on; however, it doesn't matter. Her survival military instincts kick in. She understands that her life is on the line, so she kills indiscriminately, bolstered by that suppressed anger, disappointment, and retaliation and sharpened into a weapon of rage against that same humanity that has filled her with rage. 

After she kills the remainder of the hunters in their bunker, she has a moment with the group's combat trainer to ascertain the whereabouts of the leader of the group, Athena, played by Hillary Swank. During her questioning, the trainer asks Crystal why she doesn't just leave since she killed nearly the whole group of hunters. Crystal almost breaks her composure when she tries to explain her reason, grimacing and pointing her finger as if mimicking a customer at the Ranger Rental, and in the moment when she almost tears up, she instead gathers herself and proceeds to torture the trainer by sticking her finger in his bullet wound until he tells her Athena's whereabouts. 

Crystal cannot leave and return to her previous life without first reaching full catharsis by killing the last of the hunting group, its leader. It's not about politics, revenge, or satisfaction. She has nothing to do with these groups killing each other. For her, it's about returning to the combat field where everything made sense, where survival mattered most, where you kill the people trying to kill you. In the rental agency, she couldn't kill the customers. But here where she is being hunted, she can kill the hunters.

Crystal versus Athena

In the end, Crystal May Creasey kills Athena, eats her lunch (in a symbolic gesture of victory), and boards Athena's private jet to fly home. She tells the pilot and stewardess, who are surprised to see that she survived, that she killed all the people trying to kill her and if they have a problem with that. They assure her that there's no problem. They head back to the United States. 

We never learn if Crystal May returns to the rental agency job or if she is happy with her reckoning. The movie does not give us enough information to determine the future of our heroine, but if you follow the story of Crystal, there's a lot more to the movie than the politics of the other characters. That's just background fodder. For this film, Crystal May Creasey's catharsis is all that matters. 

 

In Dream... #2

Only Death & Dream Paralyze

It is a hot night, even asleep I know that. I am in a house I do not recognize, surrounded by young, college-age people, drinking and smoking. I wonder who they are. The host--I don't know why, but I know he's the host--stands and asks visitors if they're ready. I stand to leave, trying to remember where I parked. A flash of a parking lot at the college hits my mind and vanishes. I almost transitioned to the lot, but he host interrupted. "No one leaves," he insists. There seem to be more people now, almost twice as many as before. 

"Start with me," a teen-aged girl says, raising her hand. 

The host agrees with a nod, and the girl faints. The host raises both his hands as if signing applause. More people pass out. Till I'm the only one left awake in my dream. "Your turn," he warns. "Waking up won't help you." My mind spins like spiral, twisting into nothing. The room shrinks till there is no room. 

"Wake up," I say, "it's your vertigo again." 

But it's too late. The spinning stops. The room is gone. I am alone in empty space. No floor. No ceiling. No walls. Just me. And I know I am dead. Yet knowing that I know I am dead, I have a chance if I wake up. I force my eyes open. I'm back in the emptiness. This time I use my fingers to pry my eyelids open. I'm in my bedroom, but in the wrong year. At least my mind is still alive. The vertigo must have been a stroke. 

Breathe in, breathe out. In through the nose, out from the mouth. Slowly. Now pick up the pace. My chest heaves as a raspy wheeze escapes my throat. The sky has returned without stars or moon. A light breeze mimics my final gasp. Till I notice...

Someone... or something is in the room. 

I had come for me. Then I must be dead. This is not a dream. I am in purgatory. But the breeze tussles my hair. Did I leave the window open. Did someone... or something crawl into the room. 

I am in bed again. It is at the foot of the bed. I try to kick at it, but I am frozen. Its eyes glow red. Like a movie monster I think. Yes, a movie. Sleep paralysis. Nightmare. Wiggle that damn toe and wake up. 

I open my eyes. Where am I? Did I die? Was it so bad? I turn, fluff the pillow, and reset the dream. 

 

Views from a Troubled Mind

Scene #10

The Pumpkin Patch/Petting Zoo

in Happier Days

The storm front that brought the San Gabriel Valley three days of thunder, lightning, and torrential rains is still trying to push in a new front from the Pacific Ocean on the west coast, but the Santa Ana Winds (aka The Devil Winds) that are blowing in from the desert from the east are clashing with the cooler winds from the sea and creating a monstrous wind storm between the desert and ocean gusts.

At about 5:30 a.m., October 15th, 2018, this battle between the two wind fronts pounding on the house, ripping down the awnings, tearing up the roof tiles, and tossing the half-full recycle bin and the full trash container and scattering plastic bottles, plastic bags, and aluminum cans across the driveway, into the front yard, and unto the street in front of our house

Wind uproots a tree,

splitting the sidewalk apart.

When I finally got up (yes, I did manage to sleep through much of the noise), I expected to find more damage to the house, the neighborhood, and the community. Mostly, however, there was a hell-load of trash, leaves, broken branches, and general debris covering the streets and lawns of every home and avenue. As I walked by the neighbor, who also is a gardener, he told me in Spanish that this mess meant lots of work for him. He was like a kid in a candy store sitting on his tool truck sizing up the piles of leaves that needed to be blown and the number of branches that needed to be bundled. I laughed, but he laughed louder.

The bus-stop was shut down going east because the sidewalk was folded in half. Meaning: half of the sidewalk was lying in the street, preventing the bus from being able to stop there, and the other half was sticking straight up, blocking pedestrians from using the sidewalk. I crossed the street to catch the other bus (both buses end up at the Target department store).

The skeletal structure of the tents

is first to be rebuilt.

Then I saw something that shocked me. The Pumpkin Patch/Petting Zoo was destroyed. The fences were yanked up and away by the winds, the circus tents were ripped apart (pieces of red and white tent strips were everywhere), and most incredibly, the Zoo animals were dead. No one bothered to cover them up. The workers were more concerned with rebuilding the framework to lay the new tents over. Police were there, helping the workers to move the heavy tent poles, city workers were there, shoveling the broken pumpkins, but no one was there for the animals.

I wasn't just thinking of the unhealthy state of these dead animals. No, this was a major street where children walk home from school. But no one seemed concerned.

As I stood there watching the men work, while I waited for my bus, I heard what it was that concerned the workers. No, not getting the tent up as quickly as possible, not replacing the broken pumpkins with new ones, and not replacing the dead petting animals.

What concerned them was why they were rebuilding the damn Pumpkin Patch. They're coming back, they kept saying. And the supervisor said that the winds had died down. Fuck the winds. They're coming back. Look at the animals. The wind didn't kill them. That's why we can't move them. The cops want to examine them.

The new sign is put up two days

after the destruction.

The supervisor glanced at the police helping with the tent poles. Not our department, said one of the cops. The supervisor told them to finish their work and he'll find other workers to take their place. No one was forcing them to work there. He'll cut them a check at the end of the day.

The workers nodded as they went about their work. I focused my phone camera on the dead animals and zoomed in. I couldn't even recognize what animals they were. No animal was complete. Pieces of the animals were placed together as close as possible to resemble what the animal used to look like. I didn't take pictures. What for? Just like in every horror movie I've ever seen. What killed those animals? Why, the winds, of course. The Devil Winds.*




*From the Archives: The Tragedy of the Petting Zoo, excerpted from the Norinko Series, available on Amazon.com ebooks.

 

Purchase Here.

The Summary

"Sienna Shaw is an apex predator. She kills without remorse when it suits her purposes, steals from those she judges undeserving of what they have, lives by her own set of rules. Just don’t call her a serial killer. She knows what she is and what she always will be—a survivor whose governing creed is simple: Trust No One.

Or so Sienna believes, until the day she encounters a shadowy group that calls itself the Book Club. A small, well-funded, highly secret society united by their shared taste for the macabre and a desire to instill fear among entrepreneurs, industrialists, politicians—any who imagine themselves in charge of civilization—to remind them who is really at the top of the food chain. Sienna soon finds herself a reluctant guest on a remote and supposedly haunted island where the Book Club plans to unleash hell upon its next target and usher in a new chapter of its horror-inspired mission.

But not even Sienna is prepared for the tangled web of betrayal and chaos that awaits, or the very real monsters that will be let loose—including ones that may have been present all along."

Introduction

Hank Schwaeble has been on my reading list since 2009, when I picked up a copy of Damnable. I liked the plot synopsis. Then I was introduced to Jake Hatcher, the anti-hero for a trio of supernatural novels. First there was Damnable (2009), then Diabolical (2011), and last in the trilogy, Angel of the Abyss (2016). And now here we are, 2026, and Schwaeble has a new novel out, Normal for the Spider, published by Weird Tales. I was eager as all hell when I heard there was a new book out by the genius behind Jake Hatcher. Well, when I read the synopsis, I didn't know what to expect. Where were the monsters? The mega-villains? 

Well, let's talk about those answers.

The Review

A mystery-thriller with Horror overtones, Normal for the Spider tosses the reader into the story in media res, so get ready for that. Sienna Shaw is our anti-heroine. For those who forgot, an anti-heroine is a villain who we root for. And we do root for Sienna. She steals, she robs, she kills, and that's before the story begins. Then she's tossed into the basement of a book shop where she's hiding from some stalkers. And here begins our horror tale. 

Hank Schwaeble weaves a tightly wound tale that leads you into dark corners and hidden crevices that surprise you at every turn. As you follow Sienna through her journey, you experience her harrowing initiation into the sinister Book Club, where we meet the usual suspects of fellow thieves and assassins, and then the storyline explodes, leaving you to figure out what is happening just as our anti-heroine must figure it out. 

Schwaeble's prose style is a natural fit for this kind of terror. He can smoothly escort you down twists and turns with an inviting turn of phrase or a sardonic observation that the reader can only marvel at the calm upturn of the roller coaster just before it tilts down and plunges you back into fear. We don't get jump-scares; we get shocks, but that's what we came for. 

By the third act of our story, all your questions will be answered. The monsters, the villains, and so on. It is nothing short than a grand guignol showdown. From thriller to mystery to horror: Three acts of the perfect novel that we've come to expect from Hank Schwaeble. And he delivers the horror once again with Normal for the Spider.