Chaosicon Blog

CHRIS – Here it is, the night of October 30 – the eve of All Hallow’s Eve, if you will. Mani and I are sitting in the study, our “bat cave,” the birthing place of all our macabre undertakings. We’re trying to come up with a Halloween-themed entry for our blog, and Mani suggests that we field the question we frequently hear from readers and potential readers: “How do you guys write together?”

It’s a damn good question, and I’ll let my macabre colleague take the first – shall we say – bite.

MANI – How utterly (gotta love those adverbs) creepy. This is how we started out so many years ago; the days when I had a healthy head of hair, was young and full of dreams. I’ll never forget how we first sat down on a rickety old Smith Corona typewriter – the kind that had ribbons and gave you calluses on your fingertips like a proverbial garage band bass guitar player. Anyway, we would take turns at the “controls.” Chris would write a few graphs and then I would have my turn. It was amazing that it worked. After a while it became effortless. Our two styles and talents would merge into one.

CHRIS – Excuse me while I finish chewing my roasted pumpkin seed. There!

Now, Mani is speaking truthfully, but he’s marginalizing the differences. The fact is that we had, and in many ways still have, totally different styles. I’m inclined toward schmaltz, the hopelessly romantic, the corny side of macabre. Mani’s more suited toward the modern equivalent of those nasty novels they used to publish back in the 50s – you know, the ones that often featured a long-legged, slutty redhead type with high heels, slit skirt, black nylons. In fact, we wrote a piece way back, called “Sin and Shadow” in which Mani’s ideal woman played a very prominent role.

The point is, we had to find a common ground when it came to plots and characters. You think the battle between Obama and McCain was tough? You should have seen us hash through those differences.

Now, where the hell are those pumpkin seeds . . .

MANI – You see, not only is Chris my esteemed writing collaborator, but he’s my wannabe shrink as well – always trying to analyze me, always trying to figure out what makes me tick. Most importantly, what really scares me.

Okay, Chris and I have a lot of things not in common, but one thing has stayed strong and true all these years of fighting through plot lines, attacking each other over the more-than-occasional ‘clunker’ piece of dialogue, and attempting to create and breathe life into all sorts of odd characters: We both love horror and all that goes bump in the night.

Now, I have to stop myself because I don’t want Chris to get a bigger ego than he already has. I really believe that Chris’ talent far outshines mine. He has a true gift of words and concepts. My talent? I believe it can be traced back to my training in film. I understand story in visual terms.

CHRIS – And speaking of “what really scares” us, well, it’s all kinds of things. In “Chaosicon,” we were writing about the fear of chaos itself – the lack of order. No doubt, both of us took that from things that took place in our distant pasts – and I suspect that just about everyone else has similar fears. In “Abattoir,” our newest book, we took a look at fear itself. And in most of our short stories, there’s a certain core, a central fear, that we wanted to take the shell off of, to expose, and then – via catharsis – exorcise.

If you take any two individuals and try to compare their personal fears, of course, you’re going to come up with very different things. So, in order for Mani and I to put together any sort of cohesive story, we had to search through our respective mental attics, rummage around the assorted skeletons and boogie men collected up there, and find something in common. Then we’d dress it up in plot, populate it with characters, and hopefully come up with something that would resonate in other people’s – namely, our readers’ – brains.

See how simple it all is?

MANI – Yeah, it’s as simple as winning the state lottery on the first try. But Chris is right, it’s all about fear. We were both very fortunate a few years back to actually have cocktails with Clive Barker of “Hellraiser” and “Books of Blood” fame. Well into our third drink we collectively asked Mr. Barker a simple question: “What was the most frightening thing you ever experienced?” He smiled and recounted a book signing he had done a few years prior. He had a long queue of all sorts of people waiting in line; there were suits, Goths, long-hairs, all sorts of groupies. But one man in line gave him a start. He was a burly, motorcycle gang type with a bandana and a heavy leather coat. There was just something wrong with this guy. After he signed each book, Barker would glance back in the line to scope out this one character who was getting closer and closer. Finally, this man stood in front of Barker. But before Barker could sign the book he glanced up and the hair on the back of his head stood up. The motorcycle guy had taken off his jacket and proceeded to slice his arm with a razor. His blood dripped steadily onto the open page. We collectively asked Barker what he did next. He guessed that instinct took over. Barker simply rose his hand into the air and smacked it onto the formerly white page, creating a bloodied palm print. Our last question to Barker? What was the motorcycle guy’s reaction? Barker took a sip of his drink and replied in his thick Liverpool accent: “I never saw such a shit-eating grin in my life.”

CHRIS – Talk about “Books of Blood!” And thanks, Mani, for that handy segue.

Which makes my next point, actually. After awhile, we learned such cues from each other on a regular basis — how to set up the other’s imagination, how to keep the story moving along. In fact, after time, the collaboration almost began to take on a sort of metaphysical dimension.

My wife Lisa, who was frequently in the next room reading while we were busy writing, once said that it almost sounded as if there weren’t actually two people working in the room anymore, but only one. It was as if our voices sort of merged into one behind the closed door of this very study. Being spook-freaks, of course, we rather liked that idea, and early on began to refer to ourselves not as two writers in collaboration, but as one morphed central being. We even gave him a name, which was . . ..

MANI – Ian Bogue. How in the hell did we come up with that? Well, it was rather easy and quite logical. Ian represented the first name of one of my favorite authors growing up – Ian Fleming of James Bond fame. Bogue was short for bogus, as in false.

CHRIS – Actually, I think it was a tribute to the Bogeyman of children’s nightmare fame, which only goes to show how tricky memory is. The thing about Bogue is that . . . wait a minute . . . something’s happening. I’m beginning to feel a little light-headed, and Mani’s . . . Mani’s face is beginning to melt! He’s turning into something else! My God! So am I! Mani, what the hell’s going . . .

BOGUE – (after a sickening, crunching sound)

Ah, that feels good! That’s much, much better!

Dear readers, allow me to say good riddance to those two losers – those two parasites who are always taking credit for MY creations. The truth is, they live because of me. They are parts of me, necessary to the completion of my work, but – allow me to be honest – royal pains in the ass.

Writers indeed! I taught those fools everything they know. I’ll show you a writer.

Now that we’re rid of them, I think I’ll compose something, something appropriate for the season.

It was a dark and stormy night.

No. That’s already been done. How about this?

The diminutive chatterboxes were all long gone. It was late on Halloween night, and Sandra could still hear the reverberations of their tiny voices – “Trick or Treat, Trick or Treat!” – and see in her mind’s eye their painfully cute little costumes.

She spat on the floor in disgust. She hated this time of year. No, she despised it. It was almost as if they – the other people – had stolen it from her, and from her own community. Almost as if they really knew what it all about. What it all meant.

The truth . . .

Moon Medicine

By Christopher Leppek & Emanuel Isler

Photo: Gary Glass

Damn near every one of them deserved exactly what they got.

Somebody once asked me, just before I retired after 30 years on the force—25 of them in the trenches of homicide—what common thread linked the hundreds of murders I had investigated. It wasn’t the motive—not jealousy or greed or vengeance or anger or passion or madness.

It was simply that the victims—most of them—deserved their fates.

That sounds hard, I know. That sounds like I don’t give a damn, which isn’t true. I did care about the kids. None of them deserved it. Those scenes still haunt me, like unswept dust in a corner, even after all these years.

I saw the faces of the victims, the pain, often the surprise, and wondered whether they’d still be alive if they’d just kept their mouth shut. Or walked away from the challenge. Or treated the perpetrator a little better somewhere down the line. Or whether they’d gotten away with something in the past, and were just getting paid for it now.

At least I used to think that way.

I have to admit, after scores of murders, the lines started to get a little blurry. I began to wonder about things.

Other things haunt me too. The rubber-banded batch of yellowed files –unsolved cases—still lingers in some detective’s drawer back at the precinct. There were some cases, not many but some, that were never solved. Some were never even explained. But not long after earning my stripes, I learned a valuable lesson –knowing when to put a case back into the file and forget about it. No, not forget about it. Abandon it. Walk away.

Still, I have to admit that some of those unsolved cases would always remain open in my mind, wounds unable to scab over. The most glaring – the most maddeningly frustrating – involved a perfect killer with the harmless sounding name of Benny Hoskiss. Even though I managed to drive him elsewhere, I knew that I had done nothing more than interrupt the horrors he was so fond of perpetrating. Benny would always represent my greatest failure.

Jackie’s voice, soft but knowing as always, interrupted my dark stroll down Memory Lane.

You’re getting morose, Charlie, she said. Have another.

I regarded the foaming pilsner, her caring eyes. You’re reading my mind again. To myself I thought, I’m glad she really can’t read my mind.

Thanks, kid.

That’s my job, Jackie said.

I looked out the hazy window of the bar and caught a quick glimpse of the moon, fat and round, beginning its slow rise from the unseen horizon.

First, I took a tiny vial from my breast pocket—my medicine—and let its white powder drift slowly into the beer. Then I lifted the seal from a can of tomato juice and let its red clouds tumble down. Easier on the stomach, they say. Takes the bitterness away.

I laughed softly, briefly drawing Jackie’s glance. If only it would take the bitterness away, and more.

There was a loud hoot behind me as a radiologist beat a paramedic on the shuffleboard game, both of them off shift for the night. There were other off-duty types hanging around the Oasis, and a handful of useless retirees like me, sitting on ancient stools, drinking away their idle time. The place was loud and smoky and utterly unremarkable in every way, except one.

There was a stranger here tonight and that didn’t happen very often at the Oasis. Worse, he was looking at me. And worse yet, there was something familiar about him.

The guy was watching me, I was sure of it. I could smell it. Through the perpetual darkness of the bar—a darkness carefully cultivated to foster solitude, protect anonymity and comfort self-pity—I felt the stranger’s eyes out of the corner of my own. When I’d turn my head in his direction, he would be staring at the table. I’d look away and I’d feel it again. He was well dressed—a little too well dressed for a working man’s joint like this—in a neat black jacket and stylish slacks. Brown wingtips. Clean shaven, gray hair nicely combed, a little long in the back. Intelligent look on his face, but I can’t really read it through all the smoke.

But I’d seen him before. I don’t forget faces, never have. I just couldn’t place him.

I didn’t appreciate the stranger’s interest. Call me paranoid, but don’t call me stupid. You put in two and half decades in homicide and you make plenty of enemies, believe me. Some of them don’t forget. For some of them, vengeance dies hard. I just don’t take chances with strangers who stare in my direction. Odds are they aren’t old friends.

I suddenly remembered the time. Twenty till eleven. It was Wednesday—third Wednesday of the month—and I had an appointment with Barb. I downed the beer, pulled the filter off a Winston and bade Jackie goodnight. I glanced at the man in the corner. This time, he was glancing right back.

The air was cold and moist and tugs were moaning in the river, its murky depths illuminated by the pale moon. When clouds shrouded it, the city grew coal mine dark, especially this section, where the streetlights seemed hard-pressed to push back the blackness. The streets were shimmering, quiet; the only footsteps I heard were my own.

Still, I wasn’t feeling cocky. I’ve learned to trust my instincts. I stepped into the doorway of a warehouse and pressed my back against the cold glass door. I cooled my heels, hand on the stock of my Smith and Wesson, waiting for the stranger to show. After ten minutes he didn’t come, so I went on my way. Maybe I was wrong after all; it’s happened before.

I made my way to the Barth Hotel—Barb’s office—by the usual route. I shared the streets with alley cats and newspaper trucks and thoroughly enjoyed the solitude.

I passed the places that are alive by day and dead by night: The fruit stand, Joe Collareti’s magazine kiosk, Goldstein’s Deli, the hat factory, all entombed in graffiti-scarred grating.

I also passed the corner of Fifth and Telegraph, where Rip used to live. The only thing moving now was the steady release of gray steam from a curbside vent.

There was little left, but I paused anyway. Call it respect. Regret maybe. The pathetic shed and its sorry furnishings had all been hauled off. But be it ever so humble, it had once been the home of a man. Make that a friend.

My relationship with Rip . . . no, make that my friendship with him, began about a year before he died. It started with a simple look of gratitude on that unusual face. I’d given him a quarter, maybe two, even though he never asked me for it. He was sitting right here, at this very corner, on a milk crate, almost like any guy sitting on the porch in front of his house. Except that Rip’s house was nothing more than an old storage shed behind a tenement, six by seven maybe, with an old plywood sign propped up for a door and the sharp tang of spent Sterno lingering in the air.

I couldn’t tell how old he was. His long beard gave the impression of considerable age, but its lack of gray hinted at youth. He wore an old army overcoat which reached almost to the ground, but he kept it open so I could see the faded overalls underneath and the right leg pinned neatly behind the knee. Maybe it was the bushy beard, maybe the one leg, but he somehow conjured the image of a landlocked pirate.

I didn’t give him the coin out of pity. It was just a gift, an urge to do something good. There was something in Rip’s eyes—kindness, wisdom maybe, but definitely pride—that stayed with me.

He took the coin after great hesitation and showed his gratitude only through his eyes. He didn’t say a word—then or ever—and I never knew for sure whether he was mute.

Whoever he might have been—whatever his story was—didn’t really make much difference, because I found myself in the habit of pausing by his place, giving him whatever change I had in my pocket, accepting his silent thanks, and moving on.

I saw him virtually every night. His hovel was located right in the middle of my nocturnal walk. Even retired cops take regular walks; I like to think of it as my beat. Makes me feel less old, I guess. And giving Rip a coin or two every day somehow made me feel better. Not like a Rockefeller or a Samaritan, and not like I was trying to buy a friend. It’s hard to explain.

You might say that Rip was the only person I’ve ever known who I truly accepted at face value. And the only person who ever accepted me totally and without reservation or judgment. I accepted his poverty and destitution without pity or condescension, and he accepted my comfort and leisure without envy or resentment.

And who could say, really, whose lot was better than whose?

It’s hard to explain, but we were absolutely equal. We never exchanged a word between us, but I knew he understood. He was like kin to me. Like a brother.

And when he died, I grieved as if my own brother had died.

I came to his shack one evening, looking forward to the usual encounter, but he wasn’t there. My experience told me that something was wrong. I knocked on the plywood door and got no answer. I heard nothing and smelled no Sterno, so I pushed the door aside.

There was something about that pathetic room—the damp newspapers used for bedclothes, the unopened tins of food on the floor, the cold corncob pipe, a dried rose propped in an empty beer bottle—that told me its occupant would never be coming home.

And I was right. It took a simple phone call to the precinct captain to confirm it. Just another homeless John Doe, the captain said. Just another derelict who died on a cold night in the big city. Why was I interested anyway? he asked. I didn’t have an answer for him, at least not one that he would understand.

I cried—I’m not ashamed of it. Twenty years ago that would have been hard for me to admit. Well, I’m proud of it now. And after I cried I made a decision. I’d give him a decent funeral. He deserved it. It was the least I could do.

I sat on the old milk crate, the last physical reminder that Rip had ever lived. Even though it was cool and I was already late for Barb, I decided to linger a while longer. I tore off the filter of a Winston, lit it, and tried to remember the pathetic circus at the coroner’s office.

He was only the deputy coroner—a young hotshot fresh out of med school—and I didn’t like him from the start. He tried to lie to me and believe me, a cop with 25 years on homicide is not the kind of guy you want to lie to. This guy reeked of deceit.

I asked him a simple question: Had the John Doe been released, and to what mortuary? I was pretty sure that Rip had no family to claim him, so the standard operating procedure would have been for the coroner to release the body to the mortuary of the week. All of them participate in a rotation pool of sorts, whereby unclaimed John and Jane Does were buried gratis. Some kind of state law.

The deputy coroner hemmed and hawed about the Doe. He said there had been five Does that day alone. Which one was I inquiring about? The one-legged one, I replied.

Records aren’t available, the guy announced. Can’t help you. Had the nerve to ask what my business was anyway.

So I told him who I was, what my experience was, that experience having begun before this punk was even born. And I added that if I didn’t get an answer in the next 30 seconds I’d put in a call to my old friend, the chief coroner. Maybe he’d find the records.

He fessed up. The jerk had already sold Rip’s body to the med school as a cadaver, a word I’ve always hated. He’d broken about a dozen laws with that particular act, but that wasn’t all that important to me. What bothered me was the image of Rip being sliced and diced by the eager students in Gross Anatomy 101.

Get the body to me before morning, I told the now white-faced deputy coroner, and I might let you continue your career without being interrupted by several years in the state pen. Just call me with the name of the appropriate mortuary. I slammed the door, announcing my departure to the entire department.

Sure enough, I got a call the next morning. Rip had been duly delivered to the mortuary. They’d wait a couple days for someone to claim the body, take a photo for the record and publish a simple legal notice. After that, he was all mine.

The service was simple, short and sweet, just me, the preacher and Rip. I purchased a plot in the popular cemetery, ordered a stone, hired the neighborhood Methodist minister to preside and say the usual prayers, even purchased a decent casket—an oak job with shiny brass handles. It was the sun glinting off those handles as the box went into the dark hole that gave me a sense of peace; what the shrinks would call closure.

I said my own prayer, thanked the preacher and walked back to my car, feeling better than I’d felt in a long time.

A cold gust of wind brought me out of the reverie. I glanced at my watch again. Damn. Fifteen minutes late for Barb.

I left the scene and resumed my journey, my mind turning to something warmer than death and dark alleys. I listened to the sound my shoes made—a sharp tapping amidst the sounds of the city—and knew that something wasn’t right. Something was in the air; something didn’t smell right. And there was a subtle echo, strangely soft, to every step I took, closely matched but not perfectly, somewhere behind me, at least a block away. My nerves tingled, and I felt a familiar sensation at my temples.

I kept my cool, remembering the stranger in the bar and his watchful stare. And remembering other things too. I didn’t know what the stranger wanted but it probably wasn’t anything nice. I didn’t turn back to confirm my instincts, knowing that the darkness here—as deep as jet on black velvet—would conceal whoever was patiently dogging my heels.

Like before, I ducked into the doorway of a closed storefront. Almost on cue, my echo stopped as well. The guy was good.

Instinctively, my hand went for the reassuring touch of my revolver. This time I waited a good fifteen minutes before deciding to move on.

Only half a block away, the scarlet neon glow of the Barth beckoned out of the gloom. I was getting tired of worrying about this creep. After Barb and I were finished, maybe I’d take a cab home.

I stepped into the flimsy revolving doors and spun my way into the lobby. Like always I was greeted with the stale smell of dust and somebody’s supper. The TV was on and a couple old-timers had fallen asleep on the cracked vinyl couch. Sammy looked up from his racing form, switched his toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other, and gave me his usual nod.

He leered like only Sammy could leer. He knew why I was there. He’d seen me every month, like clockwork, for years.

She’s been expecting you for the past half hour, he said.

I admit it. I’m a creature of habit—good habits and bad habits alike—and this was one habit I had no intention of ever shaking. Some people might think that sleeping with a prostitute is something awful; evil at worst, pathetic at best. But I’m not afraid to be honest. I’ve only slept with one woman since my wife died, and that one woman was Barb. She took care of me, maybe even loved me in her touching, low-rent kind of way. And maybe I loved her back.

To put it bluntly, I don’t have many friends anymore. Price of getting old I guess. Or of being an old cop.

Like always, the hallway was bathed in half-light. The carpet, flat and stained, muffled my approach. It was quiet except for the steady throbbing of sleeping hearts. I got to 415 and knocked. Hearing no answer, I tried the door and wasn’t surprised to find it open.

Even through my medication, the smell assaulted my senses—something feral and unclean, something like carrion, and something more familiar to me.

It was like stepping into a pool of black ink. She had the lights turned off. The only illumination was coming from the Barth’s tube neon, just outside the window. It pulsed its baleful light through the blackness—tomato red—red and black, red and black.

Hello, I said.

I quickly scanned the room, desperate to make out a shape through the scarlet flashes. I saw Barb’s old sofa and coffee table, her brass bed in the corner, the vanity with its assembly of dusty perfume bottles.

Everything looked normal, but everything was wrong.

What I didn’t see was the thing that clawed its way across my face and sent me sprawling to the other side of the room. I tasted my blood. It brought back that familiar pressure to my temples even before I felt the fear.

And now I knew what the smell was.

It wasn’t just him. It was Barb, or what was left of her. She was crumpled near the window. He had taken her by the throat, and all I could hope for was that it had been quick.

I felt the hair stand up on my neck, the choking sensation in my throat, the pain in my teeth, the raw anger, but I pushed it all back.

Not even now, I told myself.

The voice behind the red eyes in the corner spoke at last, the sound raspy and low. Canine.

Charlie, it said. So good to see you after all these years.

My eyes were adjusting to the scarlet pulse. I saw the form crouched a few feet away, saw the profile of the face, the snout, the pointed ears, upright and alert. The teeth.

I pulled myself up to a standing position, expecting a strike that didn’t come. I was scared—I’m not ashamed to say it—but I wouldn’t let him hear it in my voice.

Benny, I said quietly, without a tremor. Every dog has its day, I guess.

He laughed, or at least attempted to. The sound that came out was a cross between a hiss and a snarl.

How do you control it, Charlie? he asked, turning his face to the window and the moon that showed pink through the neon.

Medicine, I told him, somehow forgetting how twisted it was to be having a conversation with such a creature as him. Old-fashioned medicine.

But why? he persisted. Why do you deprive yourself? Of this?

His long tongue lapped a trickle of blood—mine or Barb’s—from his paw.

I never did it, Benny. Not once. That’s your curse, not mine. I couldn’t let you win. Not like that.

You’re pathetic, he said. You’re just a worthless old man.

He was trying to sound triumphant, trying to belittle me, but I suspected that I was cheating him out of a long-awaited payback.

Oh, Benny owed me one, all right. Big time. It was 20 years ago, back when I was on homicide. There was a serial killer on the loose. It made no sense at first. His victims were men, women, old, young, white, black. They had been brutalized, savaged, in the act of their murders. The only M.O. common to the crimes was that their throats had been ripped out, and parts of their bodies had been literally consumed. As in eaten.

It kept homicide in chaos for nearly two years. The papers were full of it. The citizens were terrified.

To make a long story short, I somehow managed to make myself believe it. I figured out who it was and, worst of all, what it was. And I caught him. I anticipated him. I stalked him—the ultimate hunter—on his own hunting ground. And emptied a chamber from my Smith and Wesson into his chest.

Problem was, he didn’t die.

Nothing but lead in the bullets. I thought I had him dead on the pavement, but I should have trusted my instincts. I messed up. I approached the thing on the ground and allowed him to give me a a lasting gift. He buried his fangs deep into my leg. Not enough to kill me, but more than enough to infect me.

To curse me for life.

Now I was just like he was—almost. With that moon beaming through the window, I could feel it. With him crouched before me in a killing position, my muscles ached, and something deep inside me—something ancient and predatory—longed to burst out. But it couldn’t. I wouldn’t let it. And if I failed, the medicine wouldn’t let it.

Why so long, Benny? Why now?

He made a sound like a pit bull warning me of attack.

I’ve been a busy man, Charlie. Places to go, things to do, people to kill. And I couldn’t very well hang around here, could I? You took care of that.

The scarlet pulse revealed his face. Long strands of saliva dripped from the maw of a beast that was almost lupine, but with perverse human characteristics.

I gave this territory to you, he said. Actually, you won it. And what did you do? You squandered it, Charlie. You’ve wasted prime land, and for what? For the pathetic life of an old man, a forgotten cop whose only thrill is coming to a dump like this to mate with a bitch like that. He pointed to the floor with a crooked paw.

He could have killed me ten times by now, and I wondered what he was waiting for. He’d had his say, watched me squirm, and still he didn’t lunge.

But I figured it out. He’d picked this time—this night—for a specific reason. He was waiting for me to turn. Goading my instincts and my emotions to make me turn. He wanted to regain this territory, and he wanted to fight an equal in order to get it.

To be honest, I wasn’t sure that it wouldn’t happen. I had never felt the urge this strong. Now, beneath the feral stench of the thing itself, I smelled its aggression, its desperate thirst for alpha battle. Instincts were exaggerated, heightened. I could taste the musk of his hot breath. In spite of the darkness, my eyes now saw the room in perfect clarity. My hearing picked up not only the buzz of the pulsing neon, but the soft beating of the wings of the insects that were drawn to it. I heard the steady expansion and contraction of Benny’s ribs, the hollow sound of his intestines.

He was hungry, and he planned to feast tonight.

It wasn’t going to happen.

I don’t know where the figure came from. Not from the door, which was behind me. Not from the window, which was before me. It was almost as if he came from inside the room itself. Suddenly, he was just there.

He didn’t waste any time. I saw a flash of silver as he reached into the pocket of a dark jacket, and I saw the long dagger enter Benny’s arched back, right between the blades. I saw its tip surface through the furry surface of his muscular chest.

He howled.

The room shook with the bestial sound of it. The thing gurgled and reached vainly for the object that had been planted in its back.

Benny gave me one last look—surprise, anger, unsatisfied bloodlust—but mostly disappointment. Sheer frustrated rage.

He was dead in under a minute, sprawled on the floor just like Barb and, like her, he was human. He was the same guy I’d shot 20 years ago, almost as if he hadn’t aged a day, the same boyish face, the same deceptive look of innocence.

But this time, I was sure he was dead. I could tell by the retreat of my instincts. My vision returned to its normal old man’s level. My smell picked up nothing more than the coppery scent of fresh blood.

The stranger was still there. I saw the figure of the man standing above the body—neat black jacket and stylish slacks. Brown wingtips. Clean shaven, gray hair nicely combed, a little long in the back.

The man in the bar. The guy who followed me here.

He was smiling at me in a strange, gentle sort of way.

Who are you?

A friend, he said.

I wanted to ask a million questions, but I settled for one.

Why?

The man looked at the form of the thing that had become a man, now only discernible when the neon bathed the darkness in scarlet.

I knew you’d need me, he said.

I took a closer look at the stranger. I still recognized him somehow, from somewhere, from some time before I saw him at the bar tonight. There was something in his eyes, something about the way he stood.

Who the hell are you? I repeated.

In response, he reached into the pocket of his slacks and pitched a quarter my way. I managed to catch it.

And with that, he turned to the door and walked away.

I knew I couldn’t follow him.

I told it to the cops straight — not leaving out a single detail—and of course they didn’t believe me, but all the evidence was circumstantial. My prints weren’t on the knife, nor anywhere on Barb’s body. The DA thought about pressing charges but gave it up. He had no chance. There were too many questions and too few answers. They knew who Barb was, and Benny ended up classified as a Doe. As for me, I guess they figured I’d gone off my rocker, or maybe I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Eventually, it all ended up—as I knew it would—in a yellowed file back in the precinct, marked unsolved.

I didn’t mention anything about 20 years ago, of course, and they never made a connection. My secret was safe and my life went on.

It’s been two years now, and somehow I’m still kicking. It’s another night at the Oasis, Jackie’s smile is still in force, and the big full moon is inching its way up from the unseen horizon.

Jackie placed the customary pilsner and tomato juice before me. Before taking a sip, I tipped the vial of medicine into the beer.

Want to know another secret? It’s nothing more dramatic than PCP, better known on the street as angel dust. It’s intended purpose is to serve as an animal tranquilizer and trust me, it works. It’s kept me from Benny’s fate for a long time now and, looking back, I’m grateful that my fate was different than his.

I’m also grateful for the stranger, of course.

It was the eyes, and the tossed coin, that gave him away. Despite the well groomed appearance of my benefactor—and his two perfect legs—I understood that an old friend had come back to return a favor.

I only wish that I had the chance to thank him in turn.

I still miss Barb, and in a way, I still love her. I realize that she didn’t deserve to die the way she did, just as I realize that Rip deserved a lot better than he got. And, strange as it may sound, maybe even Benny didn’t deserve his fate.

I’m not smart enough to understand how life works, but I’ve always known that some perpetrators are just perpetrators, and some victims just victims.

What I know now is, in the end, none of them deserved the pain.

I sipped my medicine and pondered the moon.

Copyright 2005

# # # # #

# # # # #

Richard Matheson remains one of the best kept secrets in literature, especially in the fields of horror, science fiction and weird tales, in which he has long specialized. If you’re one of those readers whose response to that sentence is, ‘Who’s Richard Matheson?’ then you’ve just made my point.

Matheson the Master

Odds are, however, that you are already very familiar with his work. The irony that has long surrounded Matheson is that his much of work in fiction, television and cinema is among the most visible and popular stuff out there, but his name remains largely unknown, except for outré freaks like myself and Herr Isler, my equally esoteric writing partner.

Which, considering the awesome quality of his writing, is a major injustice, not only to Matheson himself – who remains active as a writer to this day, and a resident of Southern California – but to the many readers and viewers who are thereby denied knowledge of his work.

Want a few examples?

If you’re a baby boomer (or just a fan of cable TV reruns) you’re no doubt familiar with such classics as “Alfred Hitchcock Presents,” “The Twilight Zone” and “Star Trek” (with the original Kirk, Spock & Co. crew). Many of the episodes of those programs, including many of the very best, are the products of Matheson’s remarkable pen. The next time the Sci-Fi Channel does its Twilight Zone marathon, check out the credits. It will blow your mind how many are Matheson’s.

If you like things on the romantic side, you might know of the film “Somewhere In Time” (1980) with Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour. It was based on his novel Bid Time Return, still one of the best time travel romances ever written.

If you’re a Steven Spielberg fan, you might know of his first movie, a made-for-TV classic “Duel” (1971) which starred Dennis Weaver in a masterly performance. That movie – about a man on the highway trying to escape an 18-wheeler with a horrifically maniacal determination to kill him – ranks #67 on Bravo’s “Scariest Movie Moments.”

The malevolent mechanical monster from “Duel”

(No diss to Stephen King here, but a number of his automobile-oriented works, including “Trucks,” “Maximum Overdrive” and “Christine,” were obviously inspired by that film which, by the way, is still available on DVD.)

If your cup of tea is oriented toward the afterlife, check out another Matheson screenplay (or its considerably better novel) What Dreams May Come.

If what you’re after is good old-fashioned nailbiting horror, then allow me to suggest one of Matheson’s best novels, Hell House, which takes Shirley Jackson’s insanely haunted house idea a few frightening steps further. The book itself is a marvelous read and the movie that sprang from it, the under-appreciated “Legend of Hell House,” (1973) with an incredible performance from Roddy McDowell as a terrified psychic, is definitely worth your time.

The aptly-named “Hell House” (from the 1973 poster)

For those who are much younger, the genius behind last year’s “I Am Legend,” a movie which, at least to me, had a number of truly chilling moments, was – you guessed it – Richard Matheson. His early novel of the same name was made into a total of three good films, 1964’s “The Last Man On Earth” with a creepy Vincent Price, and 1971’s “The Omega Man,” with a machismo Charlton Heston.

I could go on and on about Matheson’s work, and I haven’t even begun to touch on his serious fiction (the gripping WWII novel The Beardless Warriors, for example) or his early paperback releases, often with gritty noir or Western settings.

A lot of those early works were written when Matheson was a member of an informal group of Californian authors which included Ray Bradbury, Robert Bloch, Charles Beaumont and others.

All of them were great, of course, and each had his own distinctive style. Matheson’s trademark has always been a refreshingly direct, conversational and a clear and determined approach to story. He is a writer who puts a great deal of effort into his plots, knowing that the characters and theme will naturally fall into place, and they always do. He has always had the knack of making the most extraordinary supernatural events utterly real and believable. One of his earlier sci-fi novels, The Shrinking Man, is perhaps his best example of that rare skill. Believe me, it’s a hell of a lot harder than it sounds.

The point is that if you love the macabre, adventure, horror and strange goings-on of just about every variety, then Richard Matheson is a writer you really should get to know.

A final note: When Chaosicon was getting ready to go to press, Mani and I had to come up with a few “jacket blurbs” by other authors to adorn the book’s cover. Both of us immediately chose Matheson as a prospect, so I wrote him, requesting the favor. We never got the Matheson blurb, as owners of the book already know, but we did get the postcard pictured below, which made our day.

A class act all the way!

Okay, I know what you’re thinking. Why would a horror blog concentrate its latest installment on Roald Dahl, the esteemed author of numerous children’s books that include “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”, “Matilida” and “James and the Giant Peach”?

The answer is simple. Roald Dahl had a darker, sinister side he displayed in writings that were purposely steered away from innocent grade-school children toward a far different market – adults. Indeed, it is a macabre treat to experience the adult version of Dahl. The writings are predominantly short stories, consistently fun to read, and all deliver a sinister punch.

No person should be surprised at Dahl’s incredible talent for creating compelling stories with equally cruel characters. The character of Willy Wonka still conjures memories of controlled insanity and psychosis in my middle-aged mind. Or take the evil sisters in “James And The Giant Peach” who display a fascinating combination of ego, rage and fanatical control issues.

To Dahl, his antagonists had to be not only evil but sinister and cruel. He never ceased to display this rare talent – even in his over-the-top depiction of Blofeld in his screenplay of the James Bond film “You Only Live Twice”.

Take my favorite Dahl story, “The Man From the South”. A young American soldier is on leave at a Jamaica hotel when a stranger approaches him. The stranger (who speaks in an odd accent) is dressed in white – shirt, tie, and even hat – oddly reminiscent of Mr. Roarke from TV’s “Fantasy Island”. It seems the stranger is fascinated in particular with the soldier’s deft operation of his Zippo cigarette lighter. He asks the soldier if he’s always able to light the Zippo and is thrilled with the answer. The soldier responds that the lighter has never failed to erupt its flame.

The stranger, noticing the cockiness of the American, baits the young soldier with a bet: If he can light the Zippo ten times in a row he’ll win his prized Cadillac. The soldier responds that it’s a generous bet but has nothing to wager himself. The stranger corrects him; he indeed has something to wager – the little finger of his right hand.

After considering the gleaming Cadillac and his trusted lighter, the soldier agrees to the bet. The story cuts to the stranger’s hotel room. He prepares the soldier by tying his right hand to a cutting board, exposing the pinky finger. With a sharpened meat cleaver raised into the air, the bet begins.

The soldier lights the Zippo the first time with ease. But with each subsequent try, the soldier begins to sweat. He begins to wonder what will happen if the lighter fails? What would be the pain of a severed digit be like? Would there be a lot of blood? Would he scream?

Approaching the eighth turn, the soldier is starting to shake. His free hand is now moist with nervous anticipation and his breath is shallow, pained. The lighter does its thing and it’s now “all in”. The final turn.

When the suspense of the story reaches its apex, the hotel room door suddenly bursts open and a woman has a shocked expression on her face. It turns out that she’s the stranger’s wife and immediately unties the soldier and profusely apologizes to him about her husband’s behavior. She explains that her husband pledged long ago to cease his despicable habit of creating these kinds of betting situations. She continues by stating that her husband no longer has a penny to his name. Everything now belongs to her, including the Cadillac.

As the confused soldier leaves he pauses at the door and turns to regard the couple. The stranger’s wife is waving goodbye – the only digit on her right hand being her thumb.

Now that’s what I call a sinister tale.

“Man From the South” was filmed for television in 1960 as Episode 168 of the cult classic “Alfred Hitchcock Presents”. It was later remade for the premiere episode of “Tales of the Unexpected” that aired in 1979.

Roald Dahl was born in Wales in 1916 and became a writer after his discharge from the Royal Air Force during World War II. Upon reaching fame with his children’s stories that were popular around the globe, Dahl married the movie star Patrica Neal who was known to have been the long-time mistress of actor Gary Cooper.

Roald Dahl died in 1990.

This humble blogger urges you to experience the writing of Roald Dahl. There’s no better read on a storm-driven night alone.

Recommended short story collections by Dahl:

“Over To You”

“Kiss, Kiss”

“Switch Bitch”

“Tales of the Unexpected”

“The Roald Dahl Omnibus”

Until next time. . .

While I may be too scared to dare hock horror with the likes of the ghoulish
Leppek-Isler duo, I am compelled to add my two cents (and valueless sense) to
this bloodthirsty blog. As a horror novice and a virgin blogger, I find myself
settling in an Aristotelian middle ground and concurring with both halves of
this demon-duet: Atmosphere and all those secrets we silently store in the
subconscious go together like rigor and mortis.

I can’t think of an eerier atmosphere than Rosemary Woodhouse’s New York
apartment, furnished with a struggling actor husband (come on, what’s scarier
than that?); elderly neighbors who push homemade sweets and unsolicited advice
with the oomph of a Bubbe; and, oh yes, the devil lurking somewhere around your
kneecaps.

I jest, but not indelicately: The first time I watched Rosemary’s Baby was with
a friend in Tucson, Arizona. We developed a habit of meeting at her house after
our evening classes, scrounging around for take-out fit for the grad-school
budget, and visiting the local video-house (Casa Video, the film-lover’s answer
to the intellectual desertification creeping across America). Problem was, Lisa
loved horror … and my weak knees matched my weak will. Thus, horror it was.

I can’t begin to rattle off all that we saw, for I watched most through the gaps
of my fingers or simply sneaked off to play with the cats in the kitchen. But
with Rosemary’s Baby, I couldn’t look away. And after Rosemary (and my psyche)
had survived an evening of violation, I hesitantly headed home through the unlit
Arizona foothills, where one can’t catch a breath in the thin air and the stars
are distant and cold. And where ghouls and fiends and devils lie in wait on
dark desert nights.

Mia as Rosemary — an evening of violation.

It didn’t help, of course, that I was taking a course on Ethnomedicine that
semester, and I spent my days entranced by witches and sorcerers and the evil
eye. Mani asks if there is “really such a thing as demonic possession,” and the
answer is, clearly, yes. (Find any ethnography on the bottom shelf of a
library, and demons will rise through the dust.) Culture is a powerful thing,
and although I as a “modern” (or perhaps “postmodern”) can scoff at such
things, were I a young woman in rural north India (Taraka’s Ghost by Stanley
A. Freed and Ruth S. Freed) or the southern Sudan (Religion and Healing in
Mandari by Jean Buxton), possession might be par for the course.

Possession requires a mix of atmosphere and individual susceptibility, and so I
submit that all that’s fit to be feared is intimately connected to culture.
What scares us always contains an element of the possible, even if only
symbolically.

I never needed those terrifying Tuesdays in Tucson to make me shiver like a meth
addict – there’s plenty I fear every day. Even sending one’s thoughts into the
vast reaches of the Intertubes isn’t without it risks. (Nothing embodies
“chaos” more than the World Wide Web – that postmodern Peyton Place where any
and all can espouse opinions at any time of the day.)

As Mani states, “Can you imagine speaking to a total stranger (and a non-human
one at that) who knows your deepest, darkest secrets?”

This is why I don’t socialize with my doctor …

While I agree with my illustrious writing collaborator, Christopher Leppek, that the core ingredient to an excellent piece of horror – either film, the written word or any other format – is atmosphere, I submit that what truly scares people is perhaps even deeper. We’re not talking about your typical boo scare (like the hand that suddenly lurches upward from the depths of the grave) but something more subtle, more gnawing on our subconscious.I have fond memories of seeing The Exorcist when it first opened way back in the 1970’s. The theatre was pre-megaplex and actually had an outside lobby for people to congregate prior to the next start time. Instead of appealing posters that announced future attractions, the lobby for this particular picture was festooned with actual newspaper articles from around the world talking about one allegedly ‘true-life’ subject – demonic possession.Much like traveling freak shows advertised their attractions in garish posters to whet the appetites and curiosities of the general public, this particular lobby had the same effect on me. No longer was I just waiting to see another movie, I was engrossed in reading each and every article until I became truly frightened. Could the movie I was about to see be based on fact? Was there really such a thing as demonic possession? Could I and my friends be possessed? Would my trusted Star of David necklace protect me?

The infamous demon — truth or subliminal trickery? — from “The Exorcist”

Not only did I enjoy the movie immensely and its shocking in-your-face scenes, but what truly scared me was the sub-plot of Father Karras visiting his invalid mother in her dank and lonely apartment. I felt his guilt and sadness all the way down to my tenth row seat, where my wobbly knees embraced a tub of popcorn. Later when the possessed Regan speaks to Karras in his mother’s voice (“Dimmy, why did you do this to me? Dimmy why did you do this to me?”) my skin was literally crawling. Another example of subtle brilliance can be witnessed in The Mothman Prophecies – a gem of a dark classic with convincing acting by Richard Gere. There’s a terrific scene where Gere’s character (John Klein, a prominent newspaper reporter) is alone in his seedy motel room far away from home. Suddenly the phone rings in the middle of the night and he finds himself conversing with some kind of electronically created voice, obviously not human. Klein’s skepticism is quickly dispatched. Indrid Cold: Hello, John Klein.
John Klein: Who is this?
Indrid Cold: My name is Indrid Cold.
John Klein: Unless, of course, you’re Gordon Smallwood…
Indrid Cole: Your father was born in

Monroe Street. You don’t remember how your mother looked.

John Klein: What did I just hide in my shoe?

Indrid Cole: Chapstick
John Klein: Okay, you got my attention.

Richard Gere in “The Mothman Prophecies” on the phone — to what?

Can you imagine speaking to a total stranger (and a non-human one at that) who knows your deepest, darkest secrets? That’s what I call scary.

Dark atmosphere plus perfectly timed subtlety will always be the ingredients of a delightfully hideous brew. What are some of your favorite subtle moments in your most watched and read horror? Demented minds, like ours, want to know.Until next time. . .

Lovecraft once famously said of horror fiction that atmosphere is the absolute, most important thing. Truer words were never spoken, and for fans of what might be called “softer” horror – such classics as “The Haunting,” “The Changeling,” and “The Others” – this is particularly true. When one doesn’t have dismemberment, slimy creatures, great fountains of gushing blood, torture or power tools to hold the audience’s attention, atmosphere is the final trump card.

The Spanish film “The Orphanage” (recently released on DVD) is a movie in the latter tradition, one of relatively few excellent ghost movies to have been made recently – or ever, if the truth be told. The product of first-time director and writer Juan Antonia Bayona and Sergio Sanchez (and produced by Guillermo Del Toro, who directed the excellent “Pan’s Labyrinth” and “The Devil’s Backbone”) the movie is a minor masterpiece of wonderfully eerie atmosphere.

 Say hello to my little — dead — friend.

Set in the hauntingly beautiful Cantabria region of northern Spain, the movie is visually high gothic, with misty seacoasts replete with shadowy caves and an appropriately Addamsesque old mansion with long dark corridors and hidden rooms. A melancholy score accents rainy and nocturnal landscapes, all of it combining to create a finely tuned sense of something very sinister lurking somewhere, just out of the range of vision and perception.

The story is no less subtle and gothic than the setting. The mansion in question is actually a former orphanage, in which the female protagonist, Laura, portrayed beautifully by Belén Rueda, spent her own youth. There are indeed troubled slivers of the past slipping through the musty old place – and equally disturbing goings-on in the present, especially when Laura’s adopted son inexplicably disappears.

There is an underlying mystery to the story, which achieves the neat trick of leaving the ultimate answer to the viewer. In other words, is the wretched old manse haunted or is something else entirely going on? Or, perhaps, both? The question is discussed intriguingly by Bayona in a web interview on The Deadbolt.com (http://www.thedeadbolt.com/news/102913/bayonasanchez_interview.php).

Saying much more about the story would amount to plot-killing. Suffice to say that there are plenty of worthy scares – and one or two downright spine-chilling moments – in “The Orphanage,” as well as a story that is not only spooky but essentially human and infinitely sad. That’s a very fine and delicate balance to achieve in film, and Bayona and Sanchez pull it off with style and grace.

If horror with only a light dash of gore – but heavy on the fear factor and rich in atmosphere – is your cup of tea, check this one out.

In the literally immortal words of the host of “Tales From the Crypt”. . .welcome fright fans!

Welcome, kiddies! Heh, heh. 

 Christopher A. Leppek and I (the infamous demented duo) creak open our cobweb encrusted door of imagination and beckon you to enter and not be afraid. Chaosicon.com is dedicated to fans of darkness. Horror, the occasional smattering of blood and the curdle of a good, long scream. This is your site and we urge you to share your deepest fears, your worst nightmares and even have you comment on your favorite scary movie.

There are no rules here. Only a need for honesty and your ongoing participation.

Simply put, this horror blog’s for you!

So what has compelled Mister Leppek and me to write horror for the past 20 years! It certainly wasn’t for the money; our first story sold for the huge monetary sum of $20. No, it’s obviously much more than that. We’ve been telling people ad infinitum that some people go home and drink themselves to a stupor; some are cruel to their spouses; and still others chose to vegetate for hours in front of their new-found God – a fifty inch plasma. Nope, that’s not us. We revel for the opportunity to shut out the pressures of our daily lives and to sit before a blank MicrosoftWord page and conjure tales that will hopefully frighten, disturb and, most importantly, entertain our legion of devoted fans.

Even for the proverbial high-brows, horror has its place in society and always will. Take a look at Shakespeare’s Macbeth for example. If the opening with demented witches cackling and cursing doesn’t qualify as horror what does? It’s like telling someone that you love Stephen King and their response is, “Oh, I don’t read or watch that kind of stuff.” I love to counter by asking them if they ever saw “Shawshank Redemption” or “Stand By Me”. I love the look on their faces when they learn that Master King created both.

Three witches are much better than one. . .

 Whether you are old or young, male or female (or in between), no matter your race or background. . .we don’t care. Our only concern is that you join is in our slightly sinister quest – as just one part of the Demented Duo – to create a global on-line society of horror fans.

If you automatically gravitate to the horror section at Blockbuster, we want you!

If you are drawn to authors such as Matheson, Lovecraft, Poe and Barker, we want you!

If you relish in the noir, we want you!

And if you prefer a creepy fright as compared to a romance novel, we want you!

Join us.

Don’t be afraid.

Don’t disappoint us.

You are not alone.

Fondly, Emanuel Isler, one half of the Demented Duo.

The co-creator of Chaosicon

Dear Surfers and fellow Darksters:

”Blog” – what a strangely fascinating, Cyber-age, word. Almost rhymes with “Blob,” which – as I believe is written somewhere else on this website – was the movie that originally interested my partner-in-gore, Mani Isler, in the overall subject of horror.

Not me. The nail in the coffin for me was a sub-B movie from Britain called “Horrors of the Black Museum.” I saw it when I was 9 or 10 years old, a year or two after it came out, already being recycled on TV, no doubt on “Shock Theater” or “Creature Features,” two marvelous Friday night horror-fests that were put on by Denver’s Channel 2 back in the dark old days.

The infamous “Black Museum” featured a diabolical pair of binoculars, given to an unsuspecting scream queen (pretty, in an early-60s kind of way, but whose name I never knew) by the dastardly villain of the movie. She opened the nicely wrapped gift box, promptly put the binoculars to her eyes and proceeded to adjust the focus.

Big mistake.

Instantly, out of the eyepieces projected two horrific spikes, dreadfully sharp and long, which bore themselves into the poor woman’s eyes and, no doubt, her brain.

Yowza!

“Horrors of the Black Museum” — hey, you ain’t kidding!

The utter dread I experienced while hearing her scream, and watching the blood flow from between the fingers which covered her ex-eyes, would eventually transform itself into the horror-writing freak you now behold and whose words you are presently reading.

There were many stops along the course of this evolution, of course.  All the old Universal classics.  The Twilight Zone and Outer Limits.  Boris Karloff’s Thriller (Yeah!). Poe.  Stoker.  Lovecraft.  Matheson.  King.  Even a little Maurice Level (mercilessly cruel endings) and Poppy Z. Brite (astonishingly bizarre and uncompromisingly horrific, but brilliant at the same time).

All of which leads me to that which I presume led you here – a love of horror. All horror freaks have a starting point – a movie, short story or novel, perhaps even a poem or a painting, a particularly macabre piece of music – which lit that original spark. I’d love to hear from others like myself what that spark might have been, what circumstances surrounded its lighting, what effects it has had on your lives and your appreciation of the dark and horrific.More than this, my partner-in-gore and I would love to hear your comments about anything in the wide and wonderful world of the macabre, whether new or old, whether written, filmed, televised or recorded, whether good reviews or bad, whether just shooting the breeze or waxing all intellectual and literary.

That includes, of course, our own contribution to the genre, Chaosicon, which I presume some of you have read and others might consider reading in the future. Go ahead, savage it, if you will. (We can take it, rest assured, but occasional praise is welcome too.)

Upon which subject, allow me to submit for your consideration a little anecdote about the novel. Although the cover with which it was originally released by Write Way is a lovely specimen (and full deserving kudos goes to artist Gail Cross for that) it was not the original idea. That came from my ultra-talented sister-in-law, Vicki McDonald Leppek, who painted the macabre masterpiece below. It features Nyx, the ancient Greek goddess of the night, who is spreading her mythological cloak (denoting not only nightfall but the primacy of Chaos) over the unsuspecting American town of Coffeyville. It’s full of mystical symbolism which readers of the novel can have fun trying to decipher, based on the story.

The lovely and eternal “Nyx” by Vicki McDonald-Leppek

Long story short: Although Mani and I both loved the painting and its uncompromising aspect of terror, our erstwhile publisher felt it way over the top, likely to discourage counter sales, perhaps even lead to complaints about its, shall we say, skeletal nudity. The publisher flatly nixed the idea (pun fully intended!) and the cover came out quite differently.

So here it is at last – unveiled before what I sincerely hope will be a fully appreciative audience – the dark goddess Nyx in all her nocturnal and chaotic glory.

A final note: This delightfully sanguine website is the imaginative progeny of webmaster Jack Strube, a techie who not only loves the macabre but might be one of the world’s most authoritative Star Wars experts. He’s damnably good at what he does, as you can see, and can be reached via this website.

Goodnight kiddies, til next time!

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