The Wit And Weirdness Of Al Bruno III

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2026-10-17T08:38:41.473-04:00

I’m Al, and I’m raising support for myself and my fiction podcast, THIS IS CHANNEL AB3. I’ve been sharing stories on my blog since 2008, and over the years it has meant a lot to see people connect with my work and even adapt some of my stories for their own podcasts and YouTube channels with my permission. Before this show, I also created a podcast called THE NIGHT BLOGGER. My current show is a labor of love, built around humor and horror, and it has already grown to about 25 episodes. Most were written by me, with a few written by friends or adapted from classic public domain stories.

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THE NIGHT BLOGGER The Graveyard Game (and other cemetery plots) Episode Twenty-Three 'The Dance Of The Candle Barons'

2026-10-01T18:00:00.000-04:00

By Al Bruno III

April 2nd: It took us about forty minutes to get from where we had been doing our surveillance to where I had parked. When we reached the edge of the forest, Cousin Roy again held some branches aside for us. I went first and was the first to see my Ford Escort parked off to the side of the road. I was also the first to see the police car parked in front of it, its lights off and the tall, athletic frame of Deputy Regina P. Bannister leaning against the hood. The stars were bright overhead, but they weren’t bright enough to reveal her expression.

“Evening, officer,” Cousin Roy said.

“Oh shit,” Sara whispered.

“We…” The Deputy walked over to her car and opened the back door. “Need to talk.”

As you long-time readers know, this would not be my first time riding in the back of a squad car, but it was my first ride with my Cousin riding beside me. Deputy Bannister told Sara she could sit up front as long as she didn’t ‘act squirrely.’ Sara promised she wouldn’t. And that was the only restraint we endured—no cuffs, no zip ties, just a little gentle parenting. She drove in silence, and I couldn’t help but notice that the radio and other equipment in the squad car were turned off. That was a little worrying, but when I gave a questioning glance to Cousin Roy, he just gave me a smug little wink.

Instead of a police station or a doughnut shop, our thirty-minute car ride brought us to a two-story home with a two-car garage just across the Maryland border. Deputy Bannister pressed the garage door opener clipped to the sun visor and pulled the squad car into the very crowded but organized space set aside for it. She got out of the car and opened the rear doors so my cousin and I could get out. Sara didn’t have to worry about a perp-proofed door, so she was already at my side.

Deputy Bannister pointed at a 1970s-era refrigerator near the steps that led into the house. “My husband’s got it filled with soda, juice, and energy drinks. Help yourself to something.”

“Husband?” Roy said with feigned outrage. “I thought we had something special.”

Everything went into slow motion as she turned back to shoot him a glance of grim mischief.

“I think participation in a criminal conspiracy is pretty special.”

Sara said what I was thinking. “What the Hell is going on?”

Cousin Roy didn’t reply. He was too busy grabbing a pair of Red Bulls. Deputy Bannister held the door open for us.

“Make yourself comfortable in the dining room. I’ll let Ethan know you’re here.”

“Ethan?”

She headed upstairs, unbuckling her gun belt as she did so. The dining room, like the rest of the house, was the very essence of subdued opulence. There was nothing ostentatious at all, but there was also not a damn thing that could have come from a Bob’s Discount Furniture or a family member clearing out their garage.

The overhead lighting fixture was an elegant joining of rectangles. The tablecloth looked to be plain white, but when you looked more closely, there was a pattern of interconnected butterflies along the edges.

Then there was the two-foot-tall bronze statue on the credenza. It depicted Medusa with a sword in one hand, and the head of what I assumed was Perseus in the other. Her body was nude, slender, and athletic, the snakes on her head relaxed against her scalp instead of writhing, and her face held the calm expression of the “Well, who’s next?” variety.

Sara and I sat on one side of the table, Cousin Roy on the other. The chairs were wide and comfortable.

“Roy?” I said. “What in the flying fuck have you gotten us into?”

He opened the first Red Bull and drained it with a series of gulps. “I’m working the case.”

“By skipping the frying pan and going straight into the fire?”

“Man, you got a real blind spot when it comes to cops,” Roy said.

Sara nodded and took my hand. “He’s kind of right.”

Indignant didn’t even begin to describe my reaction. “Nine times out of ten, law enforcement is part of the problem. They are tools of the powers that be.”

My cousin shrugged. “The powers that be keep the lights on and the trains running on time.”

Sara frowned. “That is not the clever retort you think it is.”

“Good morning, everyone.” A Black man walked into the dining room. He was short and bespectacled, with frizzy hair. He wore a bathrobe and pajamas, but no slippers, just dirty socks. He had a thick manila folder in his hand.

“I’m Ethan Hannigan.”

Cousin Roy opened his second Red Bull. “How could you not be?”

“You have a lovely home,” Sara said.

Ethan said, “We’re pretty blessed.”

I am very proud that I didn’t say anything about bribes or asset forfeiture. I just crossed my arms and asked, “What’s in the folder?”

“The truth,” Ethan said. “Or at least as close to the truth as we have been able to figure out.”

“Are you a cop too?” I asked.

“Oh, hell no!” He chuckled. “I’m a day trader, but after what happened, I’ve been trying to help Reggie.”

“Reggie,” Cousin Roy snorted. “I guess I know who wears the pants in this family.”

Ethan just smirked. “She said you were a pistol.”

“You two been married long?” Sara asked.

“We hit our five-year anniversary in August.” He smiled and set the folder down. “How long have you two been together?”

“A little over a month.” Sara looked at me and smiled. How could I not smile back?

He paused in going through the papers. “A month, huh? I asked Reggie to marry me after about a month.”

“What you got in that folder there?” Cousin Roy asked. “Your prenup?”

Ethan looked at him with a raised eyebrow. “Prenups are for wimps.”

“Damn straight,” Sara said.

“What I’ve got here is everything we know about Bayard Estates. Reggie and I think it would be good to share information.”

“Wait a minute,” I turned to my cousin. “You managed to find the two people conducting a parallel investigation in town, managed to get arrested by one of them, and still managed to get them to help us?”

He leaned back in his chair and crossed his fingers behind his head. “Not bad for the family fuckup.”

“The arrest was a cover story.” Regina entered the room. She was wearing shorts and a T-shirt. It was obvious she had just taken a shower of the quick and efficient military variety. She walked past her husband, tracing an affectionate fingertip along his back before taking a seat at the table. “This way, whatever extrajudicial things we do in pursuit of this thing won’t come back to ruin our lives.”

I said, “And by ruin our lives, you mean your lives.”

Ethan and Regina exchanged a glance and then nodded.

“Well, okay then,” I said.

Cousin Roy said, “So day three of me traipsing about the woods spying on the place, she finds me.”

“I was aware of you way before that,” Regina said. “You aren’t inconspicuous.”

“Thank you. So she asks me what the Hell I am doing, and I spilled the beans.”

“And by that,” I said frostily, “you mean my beans.”

“Whatever. Listen, she and her sweetie pookie have a lot of information here, serious stuff.”

“Yes,” Ethan said, “and if the pookie can get us back on track, I will let you know what we know.”

It was an impressive presentation, with printouts, timelines, and eventually some homemade snacks.

The story began two years before Stan Russel’s arrival in Bridgeville. It was 2004, and a storefront opened in a dying strip mall on the east side of town. It was called Price Smart, and at first glance it looked like your average dollar store, but it sold nothing but Emblazon Unlimited products.

On paper, the owner of the store was a man named Rhett Vane, but in the three years the store was open, no one ever saw the man. The store was staffed by a seemingly never-ending stream of cute girls from out of town, and they seemed to rotate out every few weeks. No one ever knew where they lived, but they certainly made themselves a prominent part of the town’s nightlife, and they were a flirty bunch. Age and gender did not matter, but according to the many disappointed paramours, those girls were far more interested in making sure those nights ended with a new independent distributor on Emblazon Unlimited’s roster.

“She says they got a few suckers, too.” Cousin Roy couldn’t help commenting. “A great man once said that a guy will do anything as long as he thinks it’s foreplay.”

Regina said with a disapproving glare, “Actually, that was Susan Sarandon in the movie Bull Durham.”

“Never saw it.”

“Once Stan Russel arrived in town, the Price Smart started shutting down,” Ethan explained. “Not in an obvious going-out-of-business-sign-on-the-door way, but the stock on the shelves started dwindling, never to be replaced. And the hours it was open became pretty random.”

And the other thing that started dwindling was the parade of hotties that populated the store. Instead, it was now staffed by a pair of pale-skinned, gothy women who attached far more importance to black eyeliner and lipstick than they did to engaging with customers in any way. The women that everyone around town called ‘the Porcelain Twins.’ While that was going on, Stan Russel had begun making his moves on Bayard Estates, and by 2009, all the old residents had either moved out or died.

“Meanwhile,” Regina finally entered the conversation, “that damn MLM had its hooks in some people. They drained their savings buying products and taking courses. Realistically, it wasn’t that many people, but it seemed like every friend group had one person desperately trying to sell them off-brand Scrub Daddies and Beef Whips.”

“The secret ingredient is bull penises,” Cousin Roy chipped in.

“Then how is it a secret?” Sara commented.

Ethan pointed at her. “Well said.”

Regina cleared her throat in a way that was more of a warning than a request for a beverage. She went on to explain that slowly but surely, these independent distributors found themselves going further and further into debt. Their increasing desperation drove family and friends away, cost them their day jobs, and eventually left them facing foreclosures and evictions.

This was about the time Regina entered the picture. She was a freshly minted deputy, and she suddenly found herself having to help toss out members of a community she was just trying to become a trusted member of. But all was not lost, or perhaps it was, because a substantial number of these newly homeless independent contractors were given a bunch of newly renovated manufactured homes to live in at Bayard Estates, thanks to the generosity of its new owner, Stan “the Man” Russel.

“Except he wasn’t being all that generous,” Ethan said. “Because those folks, and a bunch of out-of-towners that seemed to have had similar stories, were pretty much indentured servants for Emblazon Unlimited. They had a roof over their head, cable TV, and food, but they were working for Stan in whatever way he wanted them to, and for however long he wanted them to.”

Cousin Roy dropped his voice to a baritone and sang, “I sold my soul to the company store…”

“Funny you should mention that,” Regina said.

“Yeah,” Ethan nodded, “because around 2010 or so somebody starts buying up all kinds of stuff at the local hardware store—bags of concrete, all kinds of lengths of PVC, sump pumps, flexible ducting, masonry anchors and security lights. Everything you would need to build a series of tunnels under a manufactured home community.”

“But,” Regina interrupted, “it wasn’t Stan’s LLC that did the buying. It was all done via a trust in the name of Luther Nord.”

“Luther Nord…” Sara said, “Isn’t he Rhett Vane’s lawyer?”

“Exactly.”

I made a mental note of that, and I also made a mental note that we may be dealing with a supervillain group called the League of Extraordinarily Funny-Named Gentlemen. “We are all assuming that they are building tunnels. For all we know, they are just adding some basements.”

“Dude, there are no sex dungeons in trailer parks.” Cousin Roy gave me a disparaging look. “I would know.”

Ethan grinned. “I just met the guy, but I bet he would. Thing is, though, we have proof they are digging tunnels.”

“Two years ago, a woman by the name of Daphne Mason showed up with the dirt-covered body of a man called… a man called…” Regina floundered until Ethan handed her a piece of paper. “Bill Smith. He was not in good shape, sweating, pale-skinned, and delirious. The triage nurse said it looked like sepsis, but before she could even finish getting his vitals, he coded right there.”

Regina went on to explain that Daphne was hysterical and desperate. The hospital staff did what they could, but he was too far gone for them to save him. In fact, the on-call doctor said it was a miracle Bill Smith had lived long enough to get there.

Later, a forensic investigation would show he died from an infected series of what appeared to be lamprey attachment wounds. This, aside from being disgusting, was also slightly impossible because you’d have a better chance of finding Chicago-style pizza in Bridgeville, Delaware, than a sizable lamprey population. And besides that, the species of lampreys you can find in Delaware are barely parasitic.

But Regina didn’t know any of this when she was dispatched to take a statement from Daphne. Since she had never seen Daphne before, Regina immediately realized she must be one of the new residents of Bayard Estates, not that Daphne wanted to give much information about anything at first. She was evasive and distrustful, and strange buzzwords kept slipping into her vocabulary. She talked about Bill Smith disrupting internal synergies by improperly managing proprietary data. And that he hadn’t been the same since he gained multi-level access to upper management while pursuing completion of the central presentation chamber and the greater egress. None of it made sense.

“Then she mentioned her son,” Regina said.

“She mentioned him last.” Sara’s voice became grim. “That says a lot.”

Ethan nodded. “The kid’s name was Zane, and there was no record of him being enrolled in any local schools.”

“Homeschooling,” I said. “The last refuge of loonies and cultists.”

“And Aunt Peg,” Cousin Roy added.

“And Aunt Peg.”

Regina went on, “That changed everything. Where was this kid? Was he still buried alive someplace? I started leaning on her.”

I assume it didn’t take Regina long to break Daphne, because the training and brainwashing regimen of Emblazon Unlimited had left her will just weak enough to succumb to a mild browbeating from the local PD. Everything started moving pretty quickly. Regina got her supervisors and Child Protective Services involved, but before they could arrive, Stan Russel reared his meaty head.

He said that Daphne was a disgruntled employee who had stolen a company car and “fled the campus” with the body of a co-worker who had died in a tragic gardening accident. I am not sure which part of that statement was more ridiculous, but equating a trailer park with a corporate campus is right up there.

“He gave a statement, which meant we had to take Daphne Mason into custody,” Regina explained, “but I was fine with that. No one trusted Mr. Russel, and after all, Bill Smith’s DMV records showed he was a resident of Bayard Estates. As far as I was concerned, Daphne Mason was a material witness.”

“It was a complicated situation,” Ethan said.

Regina flashed him a small smile, then said, “And then the press got involved…”

###

The Statement of Deputy Regina Bannister

It was nine PM, September 10th, 2012. I was parked about a mile from U.S. 13, just far enough away from it that a driver had a good, honest chance to slow down before hitting town. I’d already given two warnings and a ticket for an expired registration, so I figured I might as well do it now, before the high-end surveillance systems get installed in our cars and we won’t even be able to sneeze without it going onto a report somewhere.

I’m half listening to the radio chatter and trying to figure out a way to one-up Ethan’s anniversary present this year. I got him a gold fob watch, and he got us a ten-day cruise to Alaska. I don’t know how it works for other couples, but our relationship has become this kind of arms race of gifts over the years. I was honestly thinking of asking him if we could just write poems to each other or go camping.

Everything changed when I got the call, a 911 hang-up. The dispatcher had heard screaming and what sounded like a struggle before the line went dead at 841 Jonkers Street. I knew that house. It belonged to Joan Scanlon.

Joan Scanlon was a well-known local reporter. She had been working for the Milford Chronicle for over a decade, and she had covered some of the biggest scandals and crimes in Sussex County. Thanks to her, a number of politicians lost their jobs, some local businesses ended up having to pay massive settlements, and more than a few shady cops ended up in hot water.

She had brass balls.

And she showed up at the hospital the night Daphne Mason brought in Bill Smith. She had been investigating Stan Russel’s impact on the town for over three years. Just like everyone else, she knew something was wrong; she just didn’t know exactly what that was.

That was until Bill Smith became her informant. A few months ago, he had found himself realizing that he was in what was, for all intents and purposes, a cult. He had been okay with working more than twelve hours a day for Stanley Russel, first as a telemarketer and then later on lurking on every social media platform imaginable and turning every conversation he could into a chance to extol the virtues of Emblazon Unlimited. He was even okay with it when he and all the other residents of Bayard Estates and their families were strong-armed into engaging in acts of unlicensed tunnel construction running beneath each of the mobile homes and also having a single quarter-mile passage that came out in the nearby woods that your Cousin Roy nearly blundered across twice.

Then Rhett Vane became a presence in their lives. He had been living there all along in seclusion, only ever being visited by the Porcelain Twins, who, despite their heavy makeup and wigs, Joan was able to identify as Delphine Cotton and Mary Ann Topping. The first was a bunko artist, and the other had been twice charged and twice found innocent by a jury of murdering her first and third husbands.

But, as I said, once the tunnels were ninety percent complete, he began moving through them, offering suggestions and making introductions. He privately oversaw the installation of a large black door on one side of the tunnel complex, affixed to what should have been nothing but a solid wall.

Once that happened, Bill Smith said everything became strange and frightening—strange visitors and deliveries at all hours of the night, out-of-tune music coming up from somewhere in the tunnels an hour before sunrise.

And the animal bites. Circular wounds about six inches in diameter. Everyone began getting them, but no one remembered when or how.

Stan Russel told everyone it was just rats and to keep working and not ask questions.

Most of them didn’t.

And that was why Bill Smith reached out to Joan Scanlon. He knew about her regular articles about Bayard Estates. She had spoken out about many of the good people being chased out and the litigious nature of Stan Russel and his LLC.

Enough about that. Let me get back to 841 Jonkers Street. I was the first one there, and I found not just the house dark but the whole street. I radioed in to report a probable power outage, but all I got back was a faint voice I could barely make out. I chalked it up to radio interference of some kind, got out of my vehicle, Maglite in one hand and my firearm in the other. That was my nerves getting the better of me because once I reached the front door of the house, I had to fumble my Maglite into my armpit to jiggle the door handle. It was unlocked. I opened it, returned the Maglite to my left hand, and announced myself before entering.

The interior of the home was the ugliest kind of disarray: toppled furniture, broken mirrors, and silverware strewn about. The kind of thing I associate with the end stages of a long series of domestic violence calls. But Joan Scanlon was a lifelong bachelorette. My radio blared static randomly. I announced myself again.

Normally in situations like this, my training kicks in, rote discipline taking over for conscious thought. A checklist of protocols that equals survival. But now the hairs on the back of my neck were going up. I looked down to see that a small bare foot had stepped through a puddle of half-dried blood and left a trail up the stairs.

I followed it. What else was I supposed to do?

Using the beam of my Maglite, I followed the footprints up the stairs and down the hall. To the right, I caught a whiff of something both sweet and scorched. There was more blood. I slowed my pace as I reached the open door of the master bedroom. I pressed myself against one of the walls and slowly made my way to the edge of the door.

In the military, clearing a house was a group effort, but backup was miles and minutes away. I don’t ever think I’d felt so alone before. For a little while, I considered my next move. I decided to be brave.

“Sheriff’s Deputy! If anyone is inside, make yourself known!”

There was a long pause. The voice that answered me was familiar, but it somehow sounded decades older. It was Daphne Mason. After much legal wrangling, she and her child had been released into Joan Scanlon’s custody. As I said, the woman had brass balls. She had replaced one informant with a member of Stan Russel’s inner circle and kept that informant close at hand.

“What took you so long?” Daphne Mason said.

“Show yourself!” I ordered.

“Come here where I can see you.”

Disregarding everything I knew, I stepped into the doorway. If Daphne Mason had been armed, I would have been directly in her line of fire. Whatever orders I had ready to shout next became a ragged gasp. My vision was overwhelmed by the sight of a woman kneeling beside the bodies of Joan Scanlon and Zane Mason. They were propped up in a sitting position against the wall. There was blood and kitchen utensils all around them. The tops of the woman’s and the child’s heads had been hacked away. Everything above the nose was gone, everything. There was a single emergency candle in the center of the wound, the flame flickering and casting ugly shadows.

There was no stopping what happened next. I pitched forward at the waist and emptied the contents of my stomach down the front of my uniform and all over my shoes.

“She didn’t believe me,” Daphne Mason said. “I tried to explain that it wasn’t money laundering or organized crime. I told her about the Mire of Nix and the Great Machine. The Zoogs and the Egregores. Gorgo, Mormo and the Thousand-Faced Moon. And the Candle Barons, the Candle Barons most of all.”

Nothing she said made sense to me. All I knew was that two people were mutilated and a madwoman was speaking nonsense. I straightened up, my body wet with my own sick. I’d dropped my Maglite, but I didn’t know when. It had rolled away and was facing the far wall, so I had to aim my firearm by the sputtering candlelight.

“Lie down on the ground.” I meant to shout it, but all that came out was a whisper.

She picked up one of the knives. It was caked with gore. “The others are selfish; they want to keep it a secret like their books and statues. They don’t want anyone else to know dreams really do come true. I want the world to know. The whole world.”

“Put the knife down!” Now I was shouting. “Put it down and lie face first on the floor!”

“So I showed her with Zane.” She stood. “The Dance of the Candle Barons. There should have been seven, but he danced. Oh, how he danced.”

“Drop the knife!” I was screaming now. “Drop the fucking knife and get on the ground!”

“And when she saw, she understood. She begged me to… she begged me to…”

Daphne Mason seemed to lose track of her thoughts. There was a long, dangerous pause, then she said, “She had to see, she had to know.”

“Drop! The! Knife!”

But she didn’t drop the knife. She raised it up with a sure and steady hand. She said, “A dream is a wish your heart makes.”

And cut her own throat from ear to ear.

Her expression was joyous expectation. It reminded me of the expression on Ethan’s face when he handed me those two cruise tickets.

Again, my training kicked in. I put my firearm back in the holster and moved to save her. As an MP, I had seen a few suicides, usually the bullet-to-the-brain variety, and once it was a drill sergeant in front of his own trainees.

Just like those other times, I knew there was no saving Daphne Mason, but you still have to try. I swatted the knife away and began attempting to apply pressure to the wound while at the same time trying to keep the airway open. And I was doing this all with one hand while trying to raise dispatch on my radio with the other. Warm, wet redness seeped between my fingers. It was on my knees where I had knelt down, too. God, I was a mess, puke and blood everywhere.

The sound she made was this gurgling, increasing in intensity with every rise and fall of her chest. It rose and fell ten times before a final drowning gurgle escaped from the wound in her neck, and she was still.

I fell back into a sitting position, more blood on the bottom half of my uniform. I thought of how it would have to be taken into evidence when the forensics team got here, and I would never see it again. I was glad for that.

I thought about how I wanted nothing more than to go to Bayard Estates, drag Stanley Russel out of his fancy trailer, and beat him until he told me what the Hell was going on and then beat him some more.

The next part, the next part of all this, isn’t in the report, and I didn’t mention it to the department’s critical incident counselors or the Sheriff. I only told Ethan because I knew he would believe me.

But I know you three will believe me too.

As I sat there trying not to go mad and listening to my radio spit useless static, I started to hear music. It was a broken, melodic sound like a child’s music box that was winding down or needing repairs. My skin felt a swampy sensation- that’s the only thing I could call it- and I had that vertigo you sometimes get just as you’re about to fall asleep. Except I wasn’t falling asleep. If anything, I felt like I was falling awake.

The music seemed to shift around me, then I saw a sudden movement to my side. I spun around, my firearm back in my hand before I could register it.

The half-headed bodies of Joan Scanlon and Zane Mason were moving, limbs jerking in time to the music and lips smacking as though they were trying to speak. I watched, unable to comprehend what I was seeing, as the flickering flames of the candles embedded in the ruined remnants of their skulls brightened and discolored.

They were trying to stand…

###

Regina Bannister’s voice trailed off after that. I recognized the look in her eyes; Sara and I have it too. Cousin Roy and Ethan Hannigan, not so much. And speaking of Ethan, he started talking, picking up where she left off. He told us about the late-night call informing him that his wife was in the hospital. Not the ER, though; she was on one of the upper floors, the one reserved for people that had experienced a break with reality.

You know what I say about that? You either have a break with reality or reality breaks you.

“Sheriff Aparo told me they found her two miles from the crime scene,” Ethan explained. His eyes were fixed on his wife as she stared down at the dining room table. He continued, “She was easy to find, she had been shedding her uniform as she went, she was barefoot and in her underwear but she still had her gun in her hand. She was pretty incoherent and maybe that was just as well because when she started telling people what she saw…”

“But you believed her right away, didn’t you?” Sara said.

“She didn’t tell me what happened until days later. Not until I had gotten her out of there and let her recover,” Ethan said. “But when she told me I believed her. I never doubted her for a second. The only thing she’s ever lied about was my taste in ties.”

Regina laughed, a single happy expulsion of breath, but she still didn’t look up.

There was something about Regina’s story that triggered a memory from Ethan’s childhood. One of his favorite things had been the Ripley’s Believe It or Not! newspaper cartoon. A particular write-up and its accompanying art had really stuck with him. It was about the Lighthouse Man of Chungking, China.

A 1941 account described a man who supposedly had a candle stuck into a hole in the top of his skull. Every night he would walk the streets of his home city and, for a small fee, help lost travelers by lighting the way in his own very unique style.

Was this a real thing? Well, the comic strip was called Believe It or Not, but that memory was enough to set Ethan off on an Internet scavenger hunt.

What do you find when you search for ‘the Dance of the Candle Barons?’

Nothing at first. But then he made contact with an Italian textual critic specializing in Renaissance-era manuscripts, who shared with him a manuscript called Chorea Baronum Candelarum. The author of the text was unknown, but there was a working theory that it had been written by the greatest fan fiction writer of all time, Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri.

Yeah, that Dante.

No one went to Hell in this particular story, but in it the unnamed narrator is taken on a journey by a strange man named Zurama, who is described as skeletal, with leathery flesh and a ‘tortoise-like’ smile.

Not sure if it is that Zurama but damn did I flinch when I heard the name.

As punishment for a perceived blasphemy Zurama forces Dante to accompany to reclaim two students from a place called the Palus Nix. They traveled through a door made of black stone into a starless swamp littered ruins of cities and automata with enormous gears until they reached a ‘Sallow colored cottage’. The door was locked but Zurama had a key.

Inside were what the text described as “…eunuchi vultibus instar laternarum et corporibus ex sevo,” which, if I may translate for those of you with a useful college degree, means “…androgynous beings with bodies like wax and faces made of flame.”

There were seven of them, all seated on tall chairs, arguing with each other in a language Dante did not recognize but which sickened him. On the floor at the base of those tall chairs were Zurama’s students, a young boy and girl, twins. They had slit each other’s throats.

Outraged, Zurama began to shout at the strange figures, his voice slipping into their language with ease. One of the strange figures said something in response, and Zurama nodded with satisfaction.

Then Zurama turned to Dante and ordered him to sing. At first Dante didn’t understand, but when he finally did, he refused. Then Zurama did something terrible, something so terrible that Dante refuses to elaborate, but he did sing.

As soon as the first words of the hymn, ‘We praise you, God,’ left his lips, the dead twins began to get to their feet and began to dance in a way that reminded Dante of the movement of insects.

“Sounds like a Candle Baron dance to me,” Ethan said.

Cousin Roy smirked. “Sounds like Dante was on some good shit.”

Regina looked up at him, her expression becoming dangerous. “Is that what you think? That I was high?”

“Oh no.” Cousin Roy reached across the table and gave her hand a quick, gentle squeeze. “No. Don’t think that. I’m just an asshole.”

Sara nodded. “It is kind of on brand for him.”

Ethan put his arm around Regina. “Let’s just chalk it up to his roguish charm.”

There was a long, uncomfortable pause. We all looked at each other, but no one said anything. Still, though, it didn’t seem like our meeting was over.

“Brian,” Sara said, “you’re awfully quiet.”

Another long pause, then I said, “Sara, I already told you about Zurama. He’s either some kind of… thing that’s hundreds of years old, or it’s just a name creepy old mystics take to enhance their reputations.”

That surprised Ethan. “He’s a real thing?”

“I’ve never seen him myself. I’ve just come across what he left behind a thing or three, but that’s not the only familiar thing you told me about.” I held up my phone. “The Mire of Nix. The Great Machine. The Ruins of Creation. The Black Door. I know it all.”

“How?” Regina Bannister asked. She looked hopeful and frightened. After all, I was proving she wasn’t crazy, but that also meant there really were Giants in the Earth, that this wasn’t all some big Scooby-Doo-style misadventure, and that it was all the work of cruel millionaires with a Spirit Halloween fetish.

Ethan said, “I think we need to hear about this.”

“We all need to hear this,” Sara said.

“You’re right, but if we are going to keep going, we are also gonna need some coffee,” Cousin Roy said, “…and sandwiches.”

THE NIGHT BLOGGER The Graveyard Game (and other cemetery plots) Episode Twenty-Two 'Love And Sidequests'

2026-09-24T14:30:00.000-04:00

By Al Bruno III

April 2nd: Or at least close to it.

Sara, Cousin Roy, and I were crouched in the woods on a hill near the Bayard Estates manufactured home community. Technically, we were trespassing on someone’s farm to do this, but Cousin Roy assured me this hill was rarely used for anything and had a reputation as a great spot for stargazing.

The stars? I had barely noticed them, but there was no moon tonight, and I was fine with that.

We were passing Cousin Roy’s binoculars back and forth, and I was really annoyed about it because in my satchel there was a police-surplus flashlight, a collapsible shovel, a first-aid kit, baby wipes, notebooks and pens, a bottle of water, a bottle of holy water, Ziplock baggies, an EMF meter, a thermal scanner, and a package of Beef Whips salted snack meat.

But not a pair of binoculars.

Some nights I think I should change the title of my page to ‘The Night Blunderer’.

From our vantage point, we could see Bayard Estates almost perfectly. A single road led in from the main entrance, then split into two branches that curved outward before eventually joining together again at the far end. From above, the whole thing would have looked something like a lightbulb.

There were about fifty mobile homes, with the largest and most impressive building sitting right by the main entrance. And what was next to that building? A 1965 Shelby GT350, of course. Hello, Stan. We see you.

“Let me have it,” Sara whispered.

I passed her the binoculars.

“No need to whisper; they’re not gonna hear us,” Cousin Roy said.

“Until they do,” I hissed. “Keep it down.”

Even in the half-light, I could see Sara’s expression. After all, I’d been staring at her face in the dark for a long time by now, in various circumstances. She had this expression that was worry and glee all at once. I watched it for a moment longer, then turned my attention back to Bayard Estates.

There were only five automobiles in the entire park: Stan’s Shelby, two minivans, a truck, and a Tesla.

Oddly enough, that was the thing that bothered Cousin Roy the most.

“Those things are gonna be the death of us,” he’d said.

Now as for those single- and double-wide trailers themselves? Completely dark. Not a single light went on.

At first, I thought they might be empty. But once again, Cousin Roy came through. He pointed out that all the windows had window-tint film. Layers of it, apparently.

How did Cousin Roy know?

As I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, he works under the table for local mobster and Brylcreem enthusiast Peter “Bootsie” Werdegast. One of his many duties at Bootsie’s gentleman’s club, aside from working as a substitute DJ and cleaning up bodily fluids, is making sure the club’s windows have enough tint to keep passersby from seeing what’s going on inside.

Bayard Estates did have the legally required lampposts spaced at regular intervals along its roads, but most of them weren’t working, leaving everything in shadow except for the occasional slivers of light seeping out from under the mobile homes.

For those of you enjoying an existence closer to the 1%, I should inform you that mobile homes do not have basements. So what were we looking at here?

“The lights are green,” Sara said. “Why are they green?”

“Not sure.” Cousin Roy gently snatched the binoculars from her. “But whatever it is, it’s probably not for holiday cheer.”

“What are they doing down there?” I asked.

“No idea, not enough traffic coming in and out of the place for it to be something illegal and profitable,” he said. “Illegal stuff equals traffic. I gotta tell you, aside from Stan and the Porcelain twins, I have maybe seen four people poke their heads out of their trailers.”

“What for?”

“They walk into the woods for a while and come back.”

Sara said quizzically, “Maybe they don’t have bathrooms.”

Cousin Roy snorted and started singing the Mamas and the Papas, “All the leaves are brown…”

I shushed him again, rolled onto my back, and still barely noticed the stars. I had too much on my mind. What did all this mean? My original plan was just to wait for our target to go out for a few hours, sneak in, commit the appropriate felony, and sneak back out again. But now… now I was at a loss, and Sara and I were running out of time.

Was there someone I could reach out to? One of my many contacts? There was a time when Tegan Blue would have dropped everything to help me, but that was before she realized I was just using her for her spirit board. Was there something Atwater hadn’t told me about all this? No, probably not. That man loves to lecture, and the longer the lecture, the better. Maybe Ashley Fowler? Probably not, considering the last time she helped, I was tripping balls in a five-star restaurant. I put my hand over my eyes, blotting out the uninspiring stars. Did I really think I was going to win this time? Did I really think I was ever going to live happily ever after? Did I… Did I…

Did I hear music?

“Does anyone else hear that?” I said, forgetting to whisper.

“Hear what?” Sara asked.

I said, “It’s like music but not.”

Cousin Roy cocked his head. “I don’t hear Nickelback.”

“I, for one…” Sara took the binoculars back. “…enjoy Nickelback.”

“Yeah, well, you enjoy my cousin’s version of the Mattress Mambo, so I don’t think—” He paused. “Wait. What the hell is that?”

“It sounds like wind chimes,” Sara said, “but not random.”

“Organ grinder music,” Cousin Roy said.

“Are those voices?”

Sara said, “It sounds like the Residents.”

“The Residents,” Cousin Roy snorted. “A student project that got out of control.”

“But it does… but it’s like someone is trying to duplicate the sound with Ren Faire instruments. Out-of-tune ones, too,” Sara added, then she realized, “Brian? Why are you so quiet?”

I said, “I know that song…”

###

…it was early April 2009, a spring of grief and monsters that never seemed to end. Tom Wynne, my mother’s oldest, dearest friend, dead of an aneurysm, or at least that’s what they were calling it. I learned the week of Tom’s funeral that a lot of things that were one thing could be another; a weekend off from college could become an extended absence, a rally could be a possession, and an old dear friend could be something so much more. Mom and I had been turned away from Tom’s wake by a literal wall of members of the Wynne clan— aunts, cousins, and in-laws, no one my mother or I had ever met. The whole confrontation ended with my mother receiving a “You’ve got a lot of nerve showing up here” kind of speech, and as we made our way back to our car, someone called me a bastard.

I’m used to that kind of thing now, but then? Not so much.

A little over a week before, I had nearly been killed by a wisp of demonic smoke, but on the drive back from Gale Brothers Funeral Home, I was just as afraid for my life. Mom had never driven like this before—not when she was late to work, or I was running late for school, not for anything. She had always been an “I’ll get there when I get there” kind of girl. But not tonight.

Finally, the family car squealed to a halt in front of a house on the back end of Stirrup Drive I had never seen before. It was a pretty big house, and that made sense. This was the part of town where the wealthy and the wealthy-adjacent lived. I always assumed they called the street Stirrup Drive because most of the people there could afford a racehorse or two.

“Wait here,” Mom said, her voice shaking, her face crimson. It was a combination of shame and rage that made me want to hold her until she calmed down. But she was already out the door, and my cell phone was ringing. I recognized the number.

It was the call I had been waiting for.

Timing.

I watched as my Mom approached the house. It was a contemporary A-frame, for those of you readers with a real estate or architectural bent. The windows were dark; the front porch was lit. Mom was walking fast but trying to act like she had every right to be there. I wondered if I should try to stop her, but I knew that would just complicate matters. All I could do was watch and hope I wouldn’t be trying to talk her out of an arrest.

So I answered my call. “Osrick?”

The voice at the other end was craggy as always. “Brian, I expected you some time ago.”

Now Mom was walking around the front of the house, her head down. Sometimes she would bend down, shake her head, and move on.

“I know. I know. And I’m really sorry,” I said with a little bit of a cringe. “I am still with my Mom.”

There was no hiding the annoyance. “I hope you are not trying to make a fool of me.”

“No. Never, but you’ve got to understand,” I explained as I watched my Mom find the rock with the false bottom and retrieve the key. She ran up to the front door of the house and, after a bit of fumbling, let herself inside. “She’s grieving.”

“Time is not our friend, Brian,” Osrick explained. “If what you tell me is true, your mother may be grieving now, but you might be grieving her.”

“I don’t even know what to say to that.”

Actually, I did; it began with ‘Fuck’ and ended with ‘You,’ but I didn’t want to risk offending my new allies.

Mom was in there for an eternity. I kept looking up and down the street and back to the door. Meanwhile, Osrick was lecturing me about convergences and the Great Machine. And then, just to make me even more dizzy, I finally noticed the name on the house’s mailbox:

Wynne.

“I will wait,” Osrick said.

“Thank you,” I agreed. “I’ll hurry.”

The call ended. And I sat there, and sat there. Each time a car passed by, I jumped. I mean, sure, the timing of the wake was on our side, but what if someone in the Wynne family came back to get something they forgot? What if they had an alarm system? What if my Mom had well and truly flipped and she was setting the place on fire?

Finally, I saw my Mom again. She slammed the door closed and whipped the spare key into the neighbor’s yard. She had a small box under her arm, and as she ran back to the car, I wondered if this was how getaway drivers felt.

Except she was her own getaway driver.

She threw the box on my lap and sped away, leaving the Wynne house in her rearview mirror.

“What the fuuu-” I began, then remembered who I was talking to. “What on Earth is going on here?”

Mom took a hard turn, a right on red, and she didn’t check. She didn’t even slow down. Someone beeped. We were heading home, but I wondered for a moment if we would get there.

“He would have wanted us to have it,” was all she would say.

She didn’t speak again to me until we got back home, and even then it was just to apologize for everything. She was speed-walking into the house, the box under one arm and her keys in the other.

I could hear music playing in the house. Grandma Gail had suddenly taken to listening to music again, mostly gospel. In her teenage years, she had been twice as saved as Aunt Peg could ever hope to be. Of course, that was before she decided she had a different life to live, consequences be damned.

She had the music up way too loud:

“Well, I look way down the river
What do you think I see?
I see a band of angels
And they’re coming after me…”

It was so loud that Mom didn’t hear me when I asked her again what was wrong.

She swung the door open and spun around to face me so fast it knocked the welcome mat sideways.

“Your mother is a whore and a fool, that’s what’s wrong!”

Then she stormed inside and went straight to her bedroom, leaving me standing on the front step, realizing the Mike and the Mechanics story was becoming less plausible every second. I stood there watching her, wanting to run to comfort her as she had for me so many, many times. Then I thought of Osrick’s words and knew I had to go.

Fast-forward ninety minutes, and I was at the home of Osrick Langhorne.

Who the Hell is Osrick Langhorne, you ask?

Okay, let’s backtrack a little.

After my near-death experience, I doubled down on my research. In the week between Tom Wynne’s death and his wake, I went to libraries large and small, searched online, joined message boards, and paid good money to self-proclaimed mystics who called me a “Seeker.”

But the only thing I learned was that there’s a Seeker born every minute.

That changed when I found a paper written by a local, disgraced theology professor named Osrick Langhorne. He had written a treatise on a Coptic manuscript commonly referred to as the Constantinople Document. The writers of the 1939 repressed edition of the Golden Bough referred to the document when they shared this:

“This wicked vorvolaka pours out, as a most impure flood, the venom of its malice on men of depraved mind and corrupt heart, the spirit of lying, of impiety, of blasphemy and the pestilent breath of impurity, and of every vice and iniquity…”

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that Professor Langhorne was a local boy, born and bred, who had eventually been academically exiled right back to his hometown of Poughkeepsie. It took a little snooping and wheedling, but I managed to get his contact information. He didn’t answer my phone call, but then again, who does these days? But he did answer my email asking about his much-maligned monograph almost instantly. After so many setbacks and dead ends, it was a pleasant surprise. And when I told him my story, he actually believed me, an even more pleasant surprise.

He offered to speak to me right then and there, and with the naivete of a man who still thought boogeymen were few and far between, I took the nearly two-hour drive to his house and got there slightly after midnight. The man who answered the door made me think I had to be in the wrong place. Surely this was not some disgraced theologian, but instead I had accidentally knocked on the door of a Mark Twain impersonator in the middle of a late-night rehearsal.

Yes, I’m serious. The man looked just like Mark Twain: unruly white hair, thick handlebar mustache, and the kind of smile you can only find on the face of a disillusioned visionary. He welcomed me in and made me tell him the details of what I had experienced. Pertinent questions were asked, notes were taken, and he frequently nodded sagely at something I said. As someone who still thought monsters belonged in the rubbish bin with holiday mascots and organized religion, the whole thing was surreal. Even sitting there in the middle of the night, I still didn’t believe it.

And it was all the more surreal because I expected my host at any moment to begin pontificating about The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.

When I had finished speaking, he got up and began shuffling through one of his filing cabinets. I must admit that I had been so spellbound by my host’s appearance that I hadn’t even bothered to notice my surroundings, which should be the first thing you do when you are an amateur sleuth and stalker of the night. Osrick Langhorne’s home was a small, single-floor affair: a living room, a bath, a bedroom, and a kitchen. We were sitting in the living room in soft, worn-out chairs beside a long, bricked-over fireplace. There were file cabinets and bookshelves everywhere. Books and stacks of papers were piled everywhere. His beautiful antique desk had long ago lost the battle against clutter, and now it seemed that Osrick’s workspace was a card table pushed up against it. It made me wonder if the line between eccentric genius and addled hoarder was marked by a tax bracket.

He handed me a sheaf of papers, photocopies and mimeographs, all of them with obscure and archaeologically-important-sounding titles and all of them highlighted sections of text:

“Vorvolaka! Vorvolaka! I have twisted rose briar before your door. Vorvolaka! Vorvolaka! The thorns that pierced His brow will tear your flesh. Vorvolaka! Vorvolaka! I have put salt in the fire and a cross of ashes on the door. Vorvolaka! Vorvolaka! Born of evil. Sinful and corrupt. Vorvolaka! Vorvolaka! Your mouth is bitter with the taste of blood and violence. Vorvolaka! Vorvolaka! You are guilty and abhorred.” A Peasant’s Chant — Ardel Wray

“The red smoke enters the houses unseen through doors and entrances, seeking the mothers who carry life within them and the fathers who beget and the children who weep. No hearth can remain, no bed warm.” - Babylonian fragment.

“Langhorne’s methodology is essentially syncretic: he combines Jungian theories of inherited archetypal imagery with material drawn from the marginal traditions of theology and archaeology, then overlays this already unstable synthesis with the assumptions of popular spiritualism. The resulting system of invented correspondences gives rise to such alleged archetypes as the Candle Barons, the Magna Machina, and the Vorvolaka. In methodology and ambition, Langhorne’s work recalls the speculative constructions of William Sharp Shaver, Erich von Däniken, and Helena Petrovna Blavatsky. It is difficult to regard such material as scholarship, and its continued circulation within academic institutions is deeply regrettable.” - The International Society of Biblical Literature Journal #148 ‘The Case Against Osrick Langhorne’

I made a show of shuffling through them. “I have no idea what any of this means.”

“It means that where you once saw shadows, you now see light, and to see the world by the light of the truth is a terrifying thing.” He sat down in his chair and leaned toward me. “You can walk away, Brian. Leave your family behind and start over. Many who suffer such a revelation do.”

“Look, I don’t have a choice, the people I care about are in danger.” Then I laughed, briefly and hysterically, “I don’t even know if any of this is true! I could have been dreaming! I could just be crazy! You could just be five seconds from asking for my banking information!”

“Hold out your hand, Brian,” he said. “Your left one, please.”

Remember how I said there are moments when your understanding of the world simply ceases to function? There are also moments when you start to understand what you’ve been missing. Normally that can be a great thing—like realizing you love the taste of pistachio or meeting the love of your life. But it can also be terrifying. The only thing scarier than the man in the mask is the face beneath it.

I knew this was one of those moments, and part of me, a large part of me, did not want to hold out my hand. But I had to see. I had to know.

I held out my hand and Osrick Langhorne dropped a tiny stone that had been carved into an eleven-sided shape. It was the color of old blood. I looked at him questioningly. “If you think I’m going to—”

At first I thought it was just the living room lights reflecting off the polished edges of the stone, but that flickering refraction became a glow. The glow became green, and it was not a healthy springtime green; it was as though light from an alien sun filtered down through the atmosphere of a dying world.

And for a moment, just for a moment, I thought I could perceive that world.

“What…” Most people, sane people, would have been terrified. They would have dropped the stone, decided to walk away and start over. But not me. Once again I surprised myself. “What is it?”

Osrick nodded sagely. “That is a Ninazu stone.”

The glow didn’t brighten. It deepened. I frowned. “That is the least helpful thing you’ve said all night.”

“Oral legends say that there was a great sigil carved upon the side of a cliff on the Sinai Peninsula. It was as tall as five men and consisted of a series of lines, a cross, and a curve. No god or monster could stand against it,” Osrick explained. “They say the man who carved it was a refugee from a war in the city of Irem. He only escaped the carnage by finding his way into a dark passage to another world.”

“You realize how crazy this sounds, right?” I said as I stared, fascinated, at the stone.

Osrick continued, “It came to pass that the Pharaoh Netjerikhet ordered it to be destroyed and an army of laborers and soldiers brought it down, but some of those people took the ruined bits of stone and made talismans of them.”

I had so many questions; there was no way I could form a coherent train of thought. Before I could speak, everything changed again. I cocked my head. The change in my expression made Osrick lean in even closer. “What’s wrong, Brian?”

“Do you…” I struggled to speak. “Do you hear music?”

###

“…what you are telling me,” Cousin Roy said as we crept back to where my car was parked. It was two AM, and all we had to show for our stakeout was a list of things that didn’t help our situation at all. “Is that the ‘music’ we heard was the same thing you heard when you held that magic rock?”

Sara said, “Ninazu stone, right?”

“Yes,” I said. “It had eleven sides, a symbol of awareness and the parting of veils.”

She nodded. “And you held it in your left hand because that symbolizes hidden paths.”

“Nice.” I took a moment to admire the way her smile looked in the starlight. Not an appropriate thing to do while mid-skulk, but it happened.

She said, “You think you’re the only one who does research?”

“Cream-colored Christ,” Roy said before scooting up ahead of us.

“Was it really the same music?” Sara asked.

“I think so,” I replied. “It’s weird. It’s like trying to remember a dream. There are bits and pieces of melody.”

“I dunno, man.” Cousin Roy paused and lifted a branch so Sara and I could duck under it. As we did, we passed from the woods into the forest, and the canopy of trees closed in overhead, blocking the light from those useless stars and leaving us in shadow. Sara grabbed my hand. “Watch your step,” Cousin Roy cautioned.

“Don’t know what?” I asked.

“I told you.” He was just a shadow now, a shadow beckoning us to follow him. “I’m not one for blaming ghosties and goblins. This is all just true crime culty stuff.”

“How can you say that?”

“Come on, man. The guy killing hookers was a serial killer with a goofy light show, in rehab, Ashley was always doing hypnosis tricks for fun, those clown guys are just like some kind of Clockwork Orange gang, and you said it yourself that the lady with the zombies was just mindfucking people with drugs. It is all crazy people doing crazy shit.”

Sara’s voice became sharp. “What about me?”

Cousin Roy made a pained sound, the kind reserved for moments when unintended consequences hit you square in the face. “No offense, but… you’ve got issues… we all do.”

“Roy…” I said. I could feel her hand tightening around mine. It was this old argument again, but we were having it in the middle of the forest instead of at a Denny’s at 3 AM.

“For fuck’s sake!” Cousin Roy moved closer to us. “You go and on and on about how what went down in 2009 was the work of some kind of demon. Sometimes… maybe not always… angels and demons are stories we tell ourselves to deal with shit.”

“If we’re crazy,” Sara asked, “then why are you getting mixed up in all this? You might be going to jail.”

Before he spoke, he took his phone and fumbled with the flashlight app until it illuminated his face. The sincerity of his expression was just enough to offset the creepy underlighting. “I don’t believe in a lot of things, but I do believe in the people I care about, so if you want to spy on the Trailer Park of Dracula, then goddamnit I’m in.”

Sara let go of my hand and hugged him. “I thought I was gonna end the night by punching your lights out.”

He patted her shoulder as he switched off his flashlight app. “Night ain’t over yet.”

“In two or three hours it will be,” I said and started walking. “Let’s go.”

Cousin Roy called me, “It’s this way dumbass.”

The conversation dwindled as we walked on, occasionally pausing to reorient ourselves or check on one another when we stumbled over a root or stone protruding from the ground. It’s funny how making our way back from a place always seems to take longer than the initial journey to the place. I thought about everything we knew, about that music and about what I was going to do with the Eternal Codex of Tovit when I finally got my hands on it. And thinking about these things made me suddenly aware of time, and how little we might have. I had no idea what kind of a timetable Gorgo, Mormo, and Luna were operating on, but was I taking too long? Was I allowing myself to be distracted by love and sidequests?

Love and Sidequests. There was a blog entry title if I ever heard one.

My original plan had been to have Cousin Roy show up at Bayard Estates pretending to be some yokel looking to move in, make a nuisance of himself, while Sara and I did a little breaking and entering. Get in, get out, get away. But that plan assumed we’d figured out which manufactured home was playing host to an aficionado of forbidden lore, and right now I had no idea what the Hell was going on.

It took us about forty minutes to get from where we had been doing our surveillance to where I had parked. When we reached the edge of the forest, Cousin Roy again held some branches aside for us. I went first and was the first to see my Ford Escort parked off to the side of the road. I was also the first to see the police car parked in front of it, its lights off and the tall, athletic frame of Deputy Regina P. Bannister leaning against the hood. The stars were bright overhead, but they weren’t bright enough to reveal her expression.

“Evening, officer,” Cousin Roy said.

“Oh shit,” Sara whispered.

“We…” The Deputy walked over to her car and opened the back door. “Need to talk.”

THE NIGHT BLOGGER The Graveyard Game (and other cemetery plots) Episode Twenty-One 'Chicken And Waffles With A Side Order Of Exposition'

2026-09-17T18:04:00.000-04:00

By Al Bruno III

April 1st: Sara and I arrived at Justice of the Peace Court 3 in Georgetown, Delaware, at a reasonable 10:13 AM. It was a cloudy day, but we were still glowing in all the right ways. We headed inside and began the process of paying Cousin Roy’s jail. While we waited in line with the friends and families of other misdemeanor offenders, Sara batted her eyes and said, “Justice of the Peace, huh? So while we’re here…”

I waved my hand. “No way. Nothing but the best for you. We get married by an Elvis impersonator at Vegas.”

“Deal.”

The line moved slowly; I noted how many of the people around us looked sad, or angry, or like us, exasperated. A good blogger is a good eavesdropper, so even as I flirted with Sara I picked up snatches of conversation; the friends of drunk drivers wondering when it was going to stop, the parents of drug users talking in circles around their dread of someday standing over their child's grave and, most tragically, the still bruised faces of domestic abuse victims making excuses for their abusers.

Finally it was our turn, and we found ourselves standing in front of the Justice of the Peace. It was nothing like you see on the TV, no impressive courtroom, no jury box. Just a gray-haired man sitting at a standard metal desk with a sheriff's deputy on either side of him. He looked more tired than distinguished. He asked, “Are you here for Roy Foster Junior?”

Now, as someone who has been in front of a judge or two, I can tell you when the judge doesn’t have to look at his paperwork before speaking, some serious shit must have gone down.

“What is your relationship with Mr. Foster?”

“I’m his cousin.” I explained, “Brian Foster.”

“I see. He has been charged with misdemeanor cocaine possession, trespassing, and sexual harassment of a police officer. Were you aware of that?”

The deputies shared a glance at each other, so did Sara and I. “Uhm, the first part.”

“He will be granted bail at $850 dollars. You can pay the clerk when you leave at this entrance. His next court appearance is in three weeks to officially answer the charges.”

“Three weeks?” Sara said, then corrected herself, “I mean, he doesn’t even live here.”

The Justice of the Peace’s expression became even more frosty. “Ordinarily I would be sympathetic, but considering Roy Foster considers driving through a private community seven times in one night and grinding up against one of our Deputies appropriate behavior, he can sleep on the streets for all I care.

“But wouldn’t that get him arrested all over again?”

“Indeed,” His expression became even frostier, “he will also have two restraining orders against him, one preventing him from coming within 100 yards of Deputy Sheriff Regina P. Bannister and within 100 yards of the Bayard Estates manufactured home community.”

And with that my inner monologue went from its usual snarky wisdom to the simple sentence of: Don’t punch him in the courthouse. Don’t punch him in the courthouse.

“Now please go to the door to your left.”

We went to the left where the same crowd of folks from the entrance were gathered. There was a line for a window to a pleasant elderly woman taking bail money and fines from people who probably couldn’t afford it and sending them off with a sheaf of papers and a “Have a blessed day.”

From there it was off to the very secure-looking side entrance of the building, where one by one the detained people were buzzed out. I couldn’t help but notice a police car across the parking lot with a woman sitting at the wheel. Her appearance was concealed by her standard-issue hat and gear, but there was something about the shape of her face that seemed to make a sliver of kindness peek out from behind her perfectly rehearsed law enforcement glare. I wondered if this was the deputy my cousin had harassed when Sara said, “Who the Hell is that?”

I turned to where she was pointing and saw a man standing on the rightmost side of the parking lot. He had to be at least six and a half feet tall and was leaning against the hood of a 1965 Shelby GT350. Both the man and his muscle car had seen better days, but they each looked formidable.

The car had tinted windows and unnecessary chrome. The man had a military-style buzz cut and a cowboy-themed mustache. He stood perfectly still, watching the courthouse. He looked like trouble; he looked like a criminal; he looked like he would have been right at home at a…

“…trailer park,” I said.

The door buzzed, and Roy came bursting out of it like a fresh bronco at a rodeo, which is appropriate because I wanted nothing more than to call him a horse's ass.

“Hey Cuz!” He threw his arms open wide and hugged us. “Hey Sara-cua! You would not believe the last couple of days I’ve had!”

I looked from one end of the parking lot to the other; the Deputy and the Giant were both looking our way. “How the Hell did you piss off so many people in such a short time?” Sara asked as she struggled to free herself from his grip.

“It’s a small state,” Cousin Roy explained, but he refused to say more until we got him to the nearest Waffle House...

###

The Statement Roy Foster Junior

…chicken and waffles? Tastes like freedom. They barely fed me in the lockup, I would think a blue state would treat its citizens a little better. Yeah yeah. I know I’m not from here but the point stands.

Yes. I checked out the place, creepiest trailer park I have ever seen. It’s small like maybe 50 trailers, all of them must be at least fifty years old. They’ve got that streamlined Jetsons vibe to them you know? So there is like a produce store about a half a mile away from it, run by a Mennonite family. Mennonite girls give great handjobs by the way. Must be the butter churn thing. Anyway the eldest daughter of the family works there and she has got stories to tell. She says Bayard Estates is the profanest of the profane. Now Bertha tells me, that was her name by the way. No really. Sweet girl, rough hands though. So, Bertha tells me that whenever their father drives past the entrance to the place he says Psalm 23, you know the funeral one? Yay I am walking through of the valley of the shadow of death. You know? That one.

Anyway she says her Dad says there is something wrong there, that like that everyone that lives there is touched by an unknowable evil. She told me that the owner lives there… he is an ex-football player named Stanley ‘the Muscle’ Russel, you know the guy.

What? How do you not know this stuff. I thought you were an investigator!

Ok Stan was a rising star back in the 70’s recruited right out of college, he was massive dude, perfect for offensive tackle but thing is he wanted to be a quarterback and acted like it too. So he does okay in his first few seasons with the Buccaneers, but it was like the ’76 Buccaneers, you know? Lost every game of the season. But then he gets picked up by the Colts in 82 and makes a few good plays but he gets a bad back injury. I mean it was a bad one, it left him in a damn wheelchair but not because he was paralyzed; it was just he couldn’t straighten up. But as I said this is the 80s, so there are more than enough drugs to help him get back into the game, I mean they say this guy was doing Belushi-level cocaine and painkillers.

With a little side order of steroids, of course.

And he gets by for a while but eventually it all goes tits up and he becomes the most traded player in the NFL and by 1989 he is working as a celebrity spokesperson for ‘Emblazon Unlimited’, he does their commercials for Beef Whips.

Yes, they make beef whips, even MLMs gotta have a side hustle.

By the way Cuz, I am not gotta say it in front of the lady but if you ever want to find out what the ‘secret ingredient’ is let me know.

Oh? Yes it is bull penises. I underestimated you Sara.

So where was I? Oh yeah Stan Russel, he comes here about seven years ago and he buys up Bayard Estates. Now mostly back then it was like fifty trailers, all retirees. Good solid cash flow, passive income, the American Dream. Now Stan comes in and does the standard corporate fascist playbook, raises lot rents, slashes services and waits for his tenants to either die off or be foreclosed on.

Now this next part I got from one of the guys at the local dive bar, Jason and Jay’s is the name, so there is this guy there, he restores old trailers and he told me that as soon as someone got booted out of Bailey Estates, either by the Sheriff, or a Meatwagon he would go in and refurbish the whole thing. New carpets, new HVAC, tinted windows, high-speed internet. He did the furnishing too, and each one was converted so the bedrooms were like these college dorms and the living rooms were converted into offices. Soon as he finished people would move in.

Yeah. Exactly. He was making it into a business. An Emblazon Unlimited cheapass office center slowly pushing out the fixed incomes and failed dream crowd. That’s your story right there Brian, not your Space Worms from Outer Space.

No Sara, I don’t believe in that spooky spiritual stuff. It’s bullcrap. So is UFOs. So is evolution. Only one thing is true, shit happens and half the time we are never gonna understand why.

Why?

Because our minds can’t be trusted and the more that we learn and invent the more confusing stuff gets. It’s like that story about the guys that are tied up in a cave and are trying to figure out they’re looking at an elephant by the way its shadow looks on the wall.

Waitress can I get a refill on this coffee? Thanks darlin. Man I bet you were a real heartbreaker back in the day.

Sheesh. Lady doesn’t know how to take a compliment.

So anyway the new arrivals start settling in and it’s a weird situation and no one in town is really complaining about it, there was some grousing about a residential area being repurposed as a business but Stan’s got this lawyer named Luther Nord, guy apparently never leaves his hometown in Seattle but he brings the town council to their knees via a few well-placed Zoom calls. So now everything is smooth sailing, everyone leaves well enough alone. There are about 15 people working there, with one or two exceptions they barely interact with the town except sometimes going out to the local hardware stores or hunting supply stores. Rumor has it they work twelve-hour shifts doing whatever it is they do there. Dusk to dawn

What are the exceptions? Well there’s Stan of course, he is always out and about but there are these two girls… sorry Sara… ‘young women’ that work there. The lady that manages the Exxon Station calls them ‘the Porcelain Twins’ but they’re not twins they’re just two hotties with milky complexions and dark makeup and eyes that kind of don’t look at anything but still follow you around the room.

I call that ‘stripper vision’ and I know it well. I was a DJ off and on at the Cookie Jar in Albany. You know the gentleman’s club that keeps getting raided? Yeah so ‘stripper vision’ is when the girls are scanning the crowd for guys that are going to spend way way waaaaay too much money on lap dances.

Thing is the Porcelain Twins aren’t selling lap dances they’re selling the chance to work for Stan’s business as outside sales personnel. Someone’s gotta try and sell cheap toilet paper and off-brand cologne to the masses right?

What time is it anyway? Oh we’ve got hours to go before sunset.

Sunset? Well, that’s where the real show starts. You and Sara are gonna help me violate a restraining order…

###

…now we’re back at Fosdick Motel. I got Cousin Roy a room of his own on the opposite end of the building and we are going to all try and settle in for a nap before we go to see ‘the real show,’ whatever the Hell that is.

I’ve got to admit that aside from the whole making a spectacle of himself thing, my cousin did a fantastic bit of investigation. I’ve got some answers but more questions too. I still think stealing the book is my best idea, but if the Bayard Estates is full of telemarketing shut-ins, that makes my chances of getting caught pretty high.

Sara is mumbling in her sleep. Despite everything she’s been through, she can drift off pretty easily and look beautiful doing it. As I go over my notes from last October and the strange case of Sue Charney, I find myself pausing to watch her sleep. Not in a creepy way, but in a ‘Holy Shit, I’m In Love’ way.

I find myself thinking about how I would do anything for her.

And worrying that I can’t.

When I started this, I assumed I would be dealing with some low-stakes dabbler in the unknown, like Tegan Blue or poor old Osric Langhorne. Someone who knew just enough to be impressive, or was in possession of a few strange books or an eldritch Ouija board. Now? What would a failed football player and a slightly supernatural MLM have in common with the Eternal Codex of Tovit?

Realizing I was just making myself crazy, I put my laptop aside and started to slink down into the bed ready for some sleep and spooning or maybe something more. Then my phone rang. It was a vibrating in a particular way, a special signal for a special person. It was a ringtone I hear very rarely.

I grabbed my phone and leapt out of bed, disturbing Sara. She made an annoyed sound and fell right back to sleep.

Once I was in the bathroom with the door locked and the shower running, I sat on the toilet and answered. “Who is this?” I asked.

But I knew the answer.

I didn’t get a greeting; I got a song, “Ain't no grave can hold that body down.
There ain't no grave can hold that body down…”

“Started going to church?” I tried to sound snarky, but I was already starting to shake all over.

The singing stopped. Now it was just a voice, heartbreakingly familiar but even more heartbreakingly different, “You’re far from home aren’t you?”

“I could say the same thing about you?”

“The world is my home now.”

When I spoke next I almost didn’t recognize my own voice, “Shouldn’t you be spending quality time with your loved ones?”

There was that familiar chuckle and then, “I always have time for you. Always did.”

For a moment I couldn’t breathe, but I took a moment to collect myself, “What do you want?”

“I saw the moon last night and dreamed of you. It was a witch’s moon but then again aren’t they all these days?”

I was being baited, “I dream about you sometimes too.”

“Do you still wake up crying?” I could hear their expression change.

“Don’t flatter yourself. I have a lot of reasons to wake up crying.” I said.

A sigh, a thoughtful pause, “You might have more reasons to soon enough.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

No answer, just more singing, “When they feel that moonlight shine they’ll rise right out of time. Ain't no grave can hold that body down…”

On the rare occasions it happened I would draw these conversations out, letting them drag in the hopes to catch one snatch of the humanity that had once colored that voice. But not this day. Not when Sara was knocking on the bathroom door. I told her to wait just a minute, that I was just getting out of the shower, then I rinsed myself under the cold stream for a few seconds, just enough to get my body wet.

Especially my face.

THE ADVENTURES OF THE NIGHT BLOGGER

2026-09-15T10:22:02.815-04:00

“You don’t have to believe the stories on my blog, you can dismiss them as good hallucinations or bad fiction if you want to but they’re all true. The darkness was never empty, there are things that wait for the innocent and unwary to turn their backs. What is it you think I’m talking about here? Ghosts? Vampires? Ghouls? If only it were that simple. The creatures of the night are still out there but they’re not shadowing your every footstep. They just check your status updates from the comfort of their tombs.

All I ever wanted was to be a Do-It-Yourself style reporter but more often than I like I find myself becoming part of my stories. It turns out gods and monsters don’t like their secrets getting out any more than your standard politician or celebrity. We all know how this is going to turn out in the end; I’m already long overdue for jail, the looney bin or a guest of honor spot at a monster buffet but until that fateful day I’m not going to back down or give up.

My name is Brian Foster and some people call me The Night Blogger. .."

Episode One 'The Graveyard Game'

Join The Night Blogger as he unravels the true story behind 'The Graveyard Game' in a spine-tingling tale of possession and the supernatural

Episode Two 'Whispers of the Red Night'

Unearthing the past could cost the Night Blogger more than his life as he uncovers the truth behind a string of gruesome murders.

Episode Three 'A Firesign Variation'

The Night Blogger investigates Albany's ghost bus, and it could be his final destination.

Episode Four 'Shadow Of The Zombie'

A bizarre case involving meth and fantasy video games leads the Night Blogger into the deadly reality of murder and magic.

Episode Five 'Digging In The Dirt'

The Night Blogger discovers the Graveyard Game isn't over, and a secret awaits Sara Bishop in Pinewood Cemetery.

Episode Six 'Direct Market Thing'

An undercover investigation into a multi-level marketing scheme uncovers chilling truths behind recent disappearances.

Episode Seven 'The Owls And The Lizards And The Big Broke Moon'

Unexpected visitors to Vincenzo’s pawnshop interrupt the Night Blogger's investigation and lead to a surprising declaration.

Episode Eight 'Dare To Grin'

The Night Blogger delves into the mind of a serial killer.

Episode Nine 'A Trace Of Arson'

The Night Blogger investigates a series of spontaneous human combustions.

Episode Ten 'The Crimson Chimes'

The Night Blogger and his friends delve deeper into the secrets of Gorgo, Luna, and the Thousand-Faced Moon, only to realize they may need the help of a woman who claims to be the Devil.

Episode Eleven 'Nuts And Bolts'

An encounter with a mysterious doctor leads to twisted experiments and a night of terror.

Episode Twelve 'The Old Man And The Siege'

The Night Blogger uncovers the chilling mystery of a Marine's encounters with the enigmatic Old Man in black sunglasses during the Vietnam War.

Episode Thirteen 'Back From The Shadows Again'

The Night Blogger date with Sara turns into a night of terror and confusion.

Episode Fourteen 'The Rally'

A quiet evening with Sara prompts the Night Blogger to recount the chilling supernatural event that set him on the path to becoming a hunter of monsters.

Episode Fifteen 'Run In With The Devil'

Hoping to save Sara, the Night Blogger turns to the one woman who claims to be the Devil—and discovers that some legends are more dangerous than monsters.

Episode Sixteen 'Demon In Lace'

The Night Blogger's search for the mysterious Eternal Codex leads him into a world of forbidden knowledge, ancient secrets, and a book that may not want to be found.

Episode Seventeen 'Brian Foster and the Curse of the Cartwrights'

The Night Blogger prepares for a dangerous road trip to Delaware while Sara's family turns against him, and a supernatural encounter reveals a terrifying connection between his dying grandmother and a mysterious red entity.

Episode Eighteen 'Muldwych After Dark'

An impossible radio broadcast recounts the Night Blogger’s encounter with a monstrous creature he never told anyone about, leaving Brian to wonder who—or what—is listening.

Episode Nineteen 'When the PoPo Tries To Put The Kibosh On Your Old Lady'

The Night Blogger's road trip to Delaware hits a snag when Detective Bradshaw comes calling, forcing Sara to confront the disturbing truth behind Brian's history of monsters, murder, and mayhem.

Episode Twenty 'On The Fritz'

An old song leads the Night Blogger into a bizarre tale of forbidden desire, supernatural consequences, and a lover who refuses to take no for an answer.

FRESH OFF THE BUS FROM CREEPYTOWN: Living Dead Nerd

2026-09-15T10:20:31.188-04:00

Al Bruno III

I can’t really blame what happened on some kind of horror movie outbreak or evil spell. I just woke up one morning and I was dead.

Dead. Totally dead but walking around, no pulse but a head still full of Star Trek trivia. Sixteen years old, and it looked like I wasn’t going to be getting any older. So weird. I’m still not sure what I am. Zombie? Vampire? Something worse? Has this ever happened to anyone else? Even Wikipedia couldn’t tell me. Maybe when I’m done here, I’ll make an entry.

My complexion had always been pale, and my parents never really listened to me, so the whole I can’t go to school because I’m only breathing out of habit excuse didn’t fly. I still had to shamble out and catch the bus.

The ride to Allen Palmer High School was the usual hell. Insults and blunt objects thrown at me no matter how close I sat to the bus driver. Metalhead stoners, the shop class rejects—they didn’t discriminate. That day was no different, but for once, none of it bugged me. I didn’t feel anger. I didn’t feel anything.

That just pissed them off more.

They kept at it, escalating. A textbook slammed into the back of my head. I turned around, expecting to see the usual grins, but they just stared at me. Silent. I wasn’t glaring on purpose. I thought I looked surprised—mostly because I was trying to figure out why in the hell one of those idiots had a calculus textbook. Whatever they saw in my face, it shut them up. They left me alone after that.

School was school. I went through the motions, but sophomore year is basically the middle film in a trilogy—just killing time until the ending.

I wasn’t sure what my ending was going to be now. Was I going to rot away? Fall apart? I didn’t know. I still don’t. But it doesn’t bug me much. When you’re already dead, what’s the worst that could happen?

The first week passed like nothing had changed. School, home, World of Warcraft.

No more bathroom breaks messing up my raids, so hey, silver lining.

Then came the hunger.

Not the normal kind. It wasn’t in my stomach. It was in my bones. A deep ache, like something inside me was starving, softening, getting weaker. Fish sticks and fries didn’t touch it. Nothing did.

But my neighborhood was full of cats—some of the stupidest, plumpest cats you’ve ever seen. Like those tiny chickens they serve at weddings.

The first time, I didn’t think. I just did it. Snapped its neck, teeth in before I even realized. It was warm. Blood-hot. My fingers stopped shaking. The hunger faded.

By the second week, things had changed. I smelled different, but nothing a bucket of Dad’s Hi Karate couldn’t hide. People treated me differently. Even when I smiled, something about me made them uneasy. I told my gym teacher I wasn’t playing dodgeball. I was going to the library. He just let me. Amazing.

My skin cleared up, but my grades didn’t. The jocks even stopped calling me ‘Timmy the Tard.’ Not that I cared anymore.

One guy still wanted to fight. Some seven-foot freshman who thought he had something to prove. He hit me. A few times. Didn’t hurt. I hit back. Once. He crumpled. Cried.

I got called to the principal’s office, but something in the way I stared at his carotid artery must’ve changed his mind about the whole responsibility and citizenship speech. He cut it short and suspended me for a week instead.

Mom hit the roof. Dad actually seemed kind of proud.

That night, one of the neighbor’s dogs went missing. I felt like celebrating.

Since I was suspended, Mom gave me punishment chores to keep me busy while she and Dad were at work. Fine by me. Physical activity kept me from just sitting around, and when you’re dead, that’s what you do. Sit. Stare. Stop thinking. Let things happen to you.

Let go and let God, my aunt used to say.

Not that God was something I worried about anymore. Sometimes, though, I wondered—what if Jesus was just a nerd like me? What if he was someone who kept swallowing abuse until he choked on it?

At least he got cool powers. All I got was a thousand-yard stare.

And then I got laid.

Seriously.

It was the girl across the street—Stephanie, but she wanted everyone to call her Serpentina. Expelled for setting fire to the tampon dispenser in the girls’ room. My kind of girl.

I was taking out the trash when she walked up, talking about how much she liked standing in the rain and how I sure had changed. That never happened before.

She invited me inside. One thing led to another. Next thing I knew, she was on top of me, showing me all the places she planned to get tattooed and pierced when she turned eighteen.

She was warm. I didn’t realize how cold I was until she pressed against me. I let her do the driving. She kissed me, moved my hands where she wanted them, and then guided me into her.

So warm.

And since we’re both guys here, let me tell you—I was doing the full-on zombie groan, if you know what I mean.

Bet you thought I was gonna kill her and eat her or something, right?

Come on. She’s crazy about me. And she wants me to meet her girlfriend—and the way she said girlfriend has me thinking. And you know what that means. And know what that means - I may be dead, but I’m not stupid.

Of course, all that exertion left me starving, and that’s where you come in, you big, broad-shouldered jock, you.

I knew you couldn’t resist the chance to follow me here, to ‘teach me a lesson’ after what I did to that mongoloid brother of yours.

The dogs and the cats went neck-first. But since you pulled down my shorts in gym class—

I’m starting with your guts.

Scream all you want.

No one’s gonna hear you.

Man, I always wanted to say that.

THE NIGHT BLOGGER The Graveyard Game (and other cemetery plots) Episode Twenty 'On The Fritz'

2026-09-10T14:30:00.000-04:00

By Al Bruno III

April 1st: Ah, Delaware. The First State, the Diamond State, the Whoops-I-Made-a-Wrong-Turn-and-Now-I’m-in-Maryland State. The home of the very haunted Pea Patch Island, the murder-soaked Lum’s Pond, and the mischievous cryptid known as the Pukwudgie.

It is also home to a sad but inexpensive row of roadside rooms called the Fosdick Motel. As it was April Fool’s Day, I assumed the complete lack of clean towels in our room was some kind of prank. But no. Sara had to go down to the front desk and ask for them.

The surly clerk manning the desk gave her one towel and one washcloth. When she asked for a second of each, he gave her a look like she’d asked him for a picture of his grandmother’s taint.

That’s my embellishment, not hers.

We tried to crash for a few hours, but our bodies were still shaking off the aftereffects of a long drive fueled by Jolt Cola, Skittles, and damp egg salad sandwiches. Our bodies were practically vibrating, so instead we spent the time vibrating in our own way, if you get what I mean.

And you probably did get what I mean if you’re not in grade school or Detective Bradshaw.

Yeah, yeah, I’m still salty that the man tried to turn my best girl—my only girl—against me. I’m even more salty that he revealed my middle name is Lyle.

After we’d exhausted ourselves, Sara and I lay in our rented short-term bed and made small talk as dawn broke. We knew that in a couple of hours we’d have to head to the local courthouse and try to bail out Cousin Roy. What would be more trouble? The local authorities or some collector of mystical tomes hiding in a local mobile home park?

To pass the time, I told Sara about my research into Bridgeville, Delaware. I told her about Patty Cannon, who in the early 1800s, along with her son-in-law, headed the Cannon-Johnson gang, which kidnapped free Black people and sold them into slavery in the Deep South. They were believed to have abducted hundreds of people, and their network stretched as far south as Alabama and Mississippi.

Cannon was eventually captured and imprisoned in Sussex County after authorities uncovered evidence of murders and multiple bodies. She died in her cell in May 1829 while awaiting trial for murder. It’s generally believed she poisoned herself, although the exact circumstances of her death remain a matter of historical controversy.

I like to think she did. And whatever poison she took, I hope it fucking hurt.

Then I told her about Pea Patch Island, a shoal that supposedly became an island after a ship carrying peas crashed there and the plants took root. It’s not really much of an island, maybe a kilometer across and mostly swamp, but in 1794 Pierre Charles L’Enfant decided it was exactly the sort of place where you ought to put a fort. It took the government a little longer to get around to it.

Fast-forward to 1862, and Fort Delaware was serving as a prison camp for Confederate soldiers. It didn’t take long for disease to start claiming prisoners. In an attempt to head off the growing mini-pandemic, they hired a civilian doctor named Dr. Charles L. F. Reynold.

According to the accounts I found, both the Union soldiers and the prisoners took an immediate dislike to him. Letters described him as emaciated, with what one writer called a “death-like visage.” Then he started treating patients with his cutting-edge medicines, and they started dying even faster.

It became something of a scandal. Reynold was dismissed within a few months. Some people wanted him charged with negligence, but apparently the man had some very high-level connections.

I was just about to start talking about the prickly-haired, lightly murderous cryptid called Pukwudgie when Sara asked, “I looked up Harker & Huld. They’re pretty pricey. Shady, too.”

“Well, they’re Albany’s only combination law firm and bail bondsmen,” I said. “They should add a dispensary and really clean up.”

She raised an eyebrow. “How do you afford them on a pawn-shop salary?”

“Madam,” I said, “I will have you know I am Internet famous and have a PayPal account.”

“Come on… there’s got to be a story.”

“You got me. I make erotic content on the side. The website is called Brian’s Filthy Feet, and it has a very dedicated and sticky fan base.”

“Oh, really? These feet here?”

Sara dove for my toes. I had a moment to think, Oh, what a heavenly view, and then she was tickling my feet and asking me which piggies were the most popular.

Then we were laughing and tickling, and it was all so mundane and wonderful. But the tickling didn’t stop until I told her how I’d earned free legal services for the rest of my life…

###

…what follows is a tale of things that happen in dark and private moments, a tale of emotional needs supplanted by physical desire. In other words, a tale of fucking.

It begins with Rosanne Gluckman, a woman unlucky in love but skilled in the field of law and a high-ranking attorney at the Harker & Huld Legal Group. That is not an easy feat to manage, by the way, because Harker & Huld has been mostly a family affair since 1983. But Rosanne was just that good. And her specialty? Divorce.

If you could afford her, it wasn’t a matter of whether or not she was going to rake your ex over the coals. It was a matter of how hot you wanted those coals to be.

My involvement began in the spring of 2011. Rosanne was 36 years old, and she had not been in a serious relationship for very nearly a decade. She hadn’t even had a one-night stand. Maybe it was her being too jaded from her day job, maybe she was looking for love in all the wrong places, or maybe it was her reputation. There are a lot of guys out there that would shy away from a woman who could destroy the most ironclad prenup with a single well-penned tort.

Surprised? Don’t be. Cranky guys living in their mom’s basements aren’t the only ones who can find themselves involuntarily celibate.

Since women have needs just like men, Rosanne found a workaround, an expensive and preternatural one, but a workaround nonetheless. She nicknamed him Fritz; he was high on maintenance and low on personality, but he got the job done, and he was always ready for more. He made her feel things she’d barely been able to imagine feeling before. Sure, she always felt a little guilty afterwards, but that wasn’t enough to make her send him away, not when she was in a relationship with so few rules or expectations.

2010 me used to think that every relationship came down to rules and expectations. Now? Now I think it’s all about hope and faith.

Speaking of expectations, one thing Rosanne knew she had to accept was Fritz’s complete silence; he would never ask questions, make complaints, or ask about her net worth. He was a blank slate she could overwrite with her every fantasy; he could be everything she ever wanted.

Then he started humming.

That faint, almost tuneless sound turned her warm post-coital sweat ice cold. She realized what she had done with a scream, a scream the shape beside her in the bed ignored.

She ran from the bedroom and locked herself in the bathroom. This was bad. She had broken the rule—THE rule. She had committed a sin far worse than breaking a roomful of mirrors or feeding a gremlin after midnight.

The hum became a voice, almost too faint for her to hear.

“Is You Is or Is You Ain’t My Baby?”

It was four days after this turn of events that I was brought into the situation. Apparently Rosanne had brought up her situation to the senior partners of Harker & Huld Legal Group with a plea for extreme secrecy about this strange and disturbing matter. She did, of course, edit out the more salacious and supernatural details.

The secret lasted for about 24 hours, but then a strange man started calling in over and over again, singing the same song.

“Is you is or is you ain’t my baby?”

And then a low-level paralegal named Michelle Bittner spotted a strange man in a blue trench coat loitering near the parking garage at midnight. Two things about him disturbed her. First of all, he did not appear to be wearing anything under his trench coat. Second, his face was just too damn perfect and too damn stiff.

As a frequent watcher of creepy YouTube videos, she immediately tagged this individual as a skinwalker. And, as she had amazing taste and read my blog, she reached out to me.

It took some convincing from Ms. Bittner and me to get Rosanne Gluckman to speak with me. But eventually she did, and we had a frank and productive conversation. I told her that a sign-carrying panhandler known to stake out the Clifton Park exit of the Northway had been found strangled to death. The State Police listed the motive as robbery, but the only thing stolen was the blue trench coat he had been known to wear no matter the season.

Rosanne told me exactly what she had gotten herself into, and I got to work.

Two days of research later, I got a call from her begging me to come to her McMansion in Saratoga Springs.

If you only know Saratoga via that Carly Simon song, then let me explain that Saratoga is the closest thing upstate New York has to Beverly Hills. Except, of course, it has a near-complete lack of celebrities, glamour, and decent weather—but it has a nice racetrack, so it’s got that going for it.

I brought my laptop and improvised survival kit in a satchel. When I got there, she told me she got a call from Michelle Bittner that lasted just long enough for her to hear the woman’s terrified scream.

Erring on the side of caution, I barricaded us into her spacious study. Rosanne was loading the gargantuan revolver she’d just purchased. She’d said it made her feel safe.

That was one of us.

My MacBook was in the corner of the room. Atwater’s round and deeply expressive face, defined by its heavy jowls, broad nose, and hooded, penetrating eyes that had a default setting of condescension, was in the chat window.

He said, “Foster, this is without a doubt the most ludicrous situation you have ever involved yourself, and by proxy myself, in.”

“Oh, like you had anything to do,” I said as I struggled to move another one of her mahogany bookshelves in front of the door. Legal tomes dropped to the floor. “What do you have for me?”

Atwater held up a sheet of paper with Hebrew lettering on it to the camera.

“It is the word ‘truth’ in Hebrew,” Atwater explained. “Legends say the Maharal of Prague inscribed it on a man of clay to create a simulacrum of life.”

Rosanne looked at the screen. “So it’s not a skinwalker?”

“A skinwalker?” Atwater’s voice rang with exasperation. “Should we be on the lookout for leprechauns as well? I am talking about facts, my good woman, and the fact is that you, in your libidinous folly, have somehow managed to turn an anthropomorphic intimacy device into a golem.”

“A golem?” I scanned the room. The study entrance was blocked by shelves and chairs. There was a pitiful-looking log burning in the fireplace. The fireplace poker was beside it, the business end buried in the hot coals. “She turned her sex doll into a golem?”

“It is not a sex doll,” Rosanne said frostily. “It is a Macho Manikin Fully Articulated Love Companion.”

“Nevertheless,” Atwater’s voice said from the MacBook, “it’s a golem now.”

“It cost twelve thousand dollars!”

“Then it’s a twelve-thousand-dollar golem. Congratulations.” Atwater started shuffling through his notes. “The thing is, the word ‘Truth’ is supposed to be on the golem, not the golem’s owner.”

“That damned leper…” Rosanne held her forearm up for us to see. The Hebrew lettering was there. It wasn’t a tattoo or a birthmark, and it had started to appear the night the singing had begun. It had been growing darker and more pronounced by the hour. “Zurama did this to me.”

“Zurama,” I said. “I meant to ask about that. Atwater, where have I heard that name before?”

Atwater’s face reddened, which my MacBook’s screen showed in all its 4K glory.

“Foster! Have you suffered some catastrophic impairment of your neocortex? We discussed him in the pinned thread on the board about the veracity of reports of immortal beings!”

I stopped and stood there for a moment. “Oh yeah. The son of Iram, right?”

“Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. He is called the Favored One, the Son of Grootsland, the Old Man of Iram, the Repairer of Reputations…”

“Okay! Okay!” I waved my hands. “And why would he be helping Rosanne to… to do… to do the thing that she did?”

“He’s the Devil,” Rosanne said.

“I sincerely doubt that,” Atwater’s exasperated voice crackled from the MacBook screen. “And it’s not like you sold him your soul.”

“No. All he wanted was an antique.”

“An antique?” Atwater and I said in unison.

“It was a 1941 Keeler-built handheld orgone accumulator.”

I sighed; I had no idea what that meant, so I looked to Atwater.

“Orgone is a pseudoscientific concept. Supposedly it is a universal life force or vital energy which can be used to extend the lifespan, expand the mind…” He sighed, his sour expression deepening further. “And produce orgasms of preternatural intensity.”

I looked to Rosanne, and she shrugged, “It didn’t work.”

“Of course it didn’t!” Atwater sputtered, “It is pure hokum from the pre-war occult fringe…”

“Focus people!” I said, “So you traded him this accumulator so your ‘doll’ would come to life.”

“Jeoshphat! It’s like frying an egg with a rocket engine!”

“ATWATER!” I shouted.

Rosanne continued, “The deal was that Fritz would come to life and… take care of my needs until the day I found true love…” Her voice trailed off.

“And?” I gestured for her to continue.

She sighed, “And if I ever let a single teardrop fall onto Fritz, I would become his true love.”

There was a long pause. I looked from Rosanne to the MacBook; Atwater just stared out of the screen at both of us. Finally he cleared his throat, “This is the highest form of insanity…”

I pinched the bridge of my nose. “She is not… Wait. You cried on him? On it?”

“Yes, I did,” Rosanne said, “but not on purpose. Do you think I wanted to end up spending my nights getting off with some kind of magic robot? That night I was so disgusted with myself that I started to cry.”

“I’m sorry.” What else could I say?

“I got a gal who’s always late,” a syrupy, Prince Charming voice interrupted us. It was making its way up Rosanne Gluckman’s driveway. “Anytime we have a date…”

“And here we go.” I closed the MacBook lid. Atwater had time for a single shout of protest.

Meanwhile, the serenade was continuing. “I’m gonna walk up to her gate, and see if I can get it straight…”

There was a crash that could only be the sound of the house’s front door being kicked in. The home security system started going berserk. A stern-sounding operator began issuing stern-sounding warnings from the intercoms, but all the while Fritz kept singing away.

“Cause I wants her, I’m gonna ask her—Is you is or is you ain’t my baby?”

I turned back to look at Rosanne. The paleness was spreading out from the word on her forearm. Something about it made her flesh take on an artificial tone.

She cried, “You said you had a plan!”

The singer was getting closer now. I could hear his footsteps on the landing.

“The way you’re actin’ lately makes me doubt…”

“I do have a plan,” I explained, “it just happens to be an awful one.”

The study door crashed open, and I got my first glimpse of Fritz.

Imagine, if you will, Zac Efron’s head perched atop the hairless body of a romance novel lothario. He wore only a torn blue trench coat, and it fit poorly, revealing the main selling point of a Macho Manikin Fully Articulated Love Companion.

It wasn’t so much a penis as it was an assault on all sense of proportion and sanity.

“You is still my baby, baby,” Fritz’s mouth opened and closed like a puppet’s. “Seems my flame in your heart’s done gone out…”

His doll eyes zeroed in on Rosanne. She made a small terrified sound.

I approached the thing. “All right now. Easy, big fella. Let’s talk about this.”

“A woman is a creature that has always been strange…” Fritz took another step forward. I moved forward again, quite literally cock blocking him. “Just when you’re sure of one you find she’s gone and made a change…”

“Listen to me!” I shouted. “I’m not sure what you are, but I know you’re not a monster. And I know you know what’s going to happen to Rosanne if you don’t stop this. And you can stop this, can’t you?”

Fritz paused.

I said, “If you really care about her, you won’t do this. Come on. Think. You’re not a monster. You’re a lover.”

The pause stretched on, measured in nervous breaths and heartbeats.

“Come on,” I said. “Is she is or is she ain’t your baby?”

Was Fritz listening to me? Was there an actual soul of some kind that could have understood what I was doing, or was he just a wish and a curse made manifest?

I’ll never know because that was when Rosanne decided to shoot him.

BLAM!

It was like a bolt of lightning crashed over my shoulder. A hot breeze blasted past my cheek. My right eye was flash-blinded. My right ear was deafened. The bullet hit Fritz dead center in his smarmy smile and lodged deep in one of the steel joints that held his PVC skull together.

There was a long pause. I think Rosanne said, “Sorry, Brian,” but the ringing in my head was so loud it sounded a lot like “Starry fryin’.”

Then Fritz started singing again from what was left of his mouth.

“ITH you iTH or iTH you ain’t my baby? Maybe baby’TH found THomebody new…”

He picked me up by the lapels of my leather jacket and threw me into the oak bookshelf we’d been using as a barricade. I hit it with enough force to send it pitching forward, pinning me. Sharp pain exploded in my torso. I would later learn I had broken two ribs and had a concussion.

Rosanne kept firing. Fritz kept singing.

BLAM!

“Or iTH my baby THtill my baby true?”

BLAM!

“ITH you or iTH you ain’t my baby, baby?”

BLAM! BLAM!

“The way you’re actin’ lately makeTH me doubt…”

BLAM!

“THee here, who’TH been cuttin’ me…”

Fighting through a fog of pain, I half-squirmed, half-crawled free of the bookshelf and staggered to my feet just as Rosanne threw the empty revolver at him. It bounced off his jaw, taking out a faux tooth before it hit the floor.

She was backing away. It might have been the concussion talking, but it looked like her movements were getting stiffer, her face losing the ability to hold its expression of terror.

What was it Rosanne had been told? If she ever let a teardrop fall onto his silicone flesh, she would become his true love. What would a Pinocchio with a priapism like Fritz want? Another living doll, of course.

There was no choice. Reason had failed, if it had ever had a chance. It was time to implement my awful plan.

I scrabbled across the study and grabbed the fireplace poker. It had been sitting in the fire for almost an hour, so it was good and hot.

“You’TH is THtill my baby, baby. Baby boy, it seemTH my flame in your heart’TH done…”

I charged, crashing past Fritz and bringing the red-hot metal down onto Rosanne’s forearm. She screamed. Skin sizzled. The ‘Truth’ marking and the surrounding flesh were reduced to a blackened ruin…

###

“…then what?” Sara asked. She was sitting on the far side of the bed. Her tickling had turned into a foot massage, and nothing dulls the pain of remembering the time you were nearly killed by a robot with a priapism like a nice foot massage.

“The Saratoga police burst into the room about thirty seconds after I’d given Rosanne her life-saving third-degree burn and ten seconds after Fritz had collapsed lifelessly to the floor,” I explained. “And I hold no grudges about the tasering and arrest.”

“Ah-ha.” Sara smiled as she pressed her thumb into the arch of my foot. “And that is why Harker & Huld Legal Group are your go-to guys.”

“Yeah. At first it was just that Rosanne Gluckman was going to not press charges, but a certain Albany defective detective pushed them into finding something to charge me with.”

“Bradshaw.”

I nodded. “Bradshaw. Once she saw I was looking at a little jail time, Rosanne begged one of her close friends in the firm to help me out. She told her everything.”

“And that was Lucy Harker.” She shifted position and plopped her piggies in my lap. “Do me now.”

So I did. “I’ll make an investigative blogger out of you yet.”

Sara laughed. “I think I’d rather run a meadery. Maybe even make our own honey.”

“Sign me up.” I pressed my fingers along her instep and watched her arch her back delightfully and coo.

“So whatever happened to Rosanne?”

“Ah, well, it turns out that the whole mess made her realize the person who really cared about her was right in front of her,” I explained. “She and Lucy have been living together for about a year now. They let me know about their engagement and explained why there was no way on Earth I could be invited to their wedding.”

“Awww,” Sara said. “I could have been your plus-one.”

“Of course Atwater made some snarky comment about her being driven into ‘the arms of Sappho’ by the trauma. He’s a jerk like that.”

“You think someone that smart would know we’re all basically bisexual.”

“You think so?”

She winked and wriggled her toes. “I know so.”

“Oh, really?” I tried not to objectify this revelation and get all hot and bothered by it. I failed.

She came back around to my end of the bed so she could kiss me. “You’re not the only one with stories. I’ve got plenty.”

I kissed her back. “Truly, you contain multitudes.”

“Brian Foster, you don’t know the half of it,” she kissed me again but for a moment before she went in for that kiss, and it was just a moment mind you, there was a flicker of something in her eyes. Something serious and sad. I understood it, at least I thought I did. She wasn’t tell me everything but that was fine after all I didn’t tell her that my sources told me that six months ago there was a break in at the evidence storage facility used by the Saratoga Police Department. The only item that went missing was one heavily damaged Macho Manikin Fully Articulated Love Companion.

And that was fine the story deserved a happy ending, we have to take them where and when we can in this world.

Sara grabbed my straw pork pie hat off the nightstand and put it on her head, “So how much longer can we stay in bed?”

I smiled, “Well, we don’t have to be there first thing in the morning.”

And then we did exactactly what you think we did.

And she kept my hat on the entire time.

THE NIGHT BLOGGER The Graveyard Game (and other cemetery plots) Episode Nineteen 'When the PoPo Tries To Put The Kibosh On Your Old Lady'

2026-09-03T06:25:27.973-04:00

By Al Bruno III

March 31st: It was a bright and pleasant morning. Sara and I were putting the finishing touches on our trip with the a distinctly post-coitus burst of energy. We were both packing up. Sara was filling a cooler with ice, sandwiches, and Jolt Cola. I would learn later that, knowing I'd object, Mrs. Vincenzo had slipped her an envelope containing an amount of cash normally reserved for bribing local politicians.

I loaded our single suitcase with our combined clothes and made sure my satchel was equipped as usual: a police-surplus flashlight, a collapsible shovel, a first-aid kit, baby wipes, notebooks and pens, a bottle of water, a bottle of holy water, Ziplock baggies, an EMF meter, a thermal scanner, and a package of Beef Whips salted snack meat. I might not need any of those things, but at least they made the satchel heavy enough to hit someone with.

With my Ford Escort loaded up we were ready to go. I made a call to check in with Cousin Roy but the call went right to the voicemail he hadn't set up. I tried not to let that worry me.

But when the unmarked police cruiser parked in front of us then I got worried.

I asked, “Did we get travel insurance on those reservations?”

"Brian... what's going on?" Sara asked back.

I watched the man climb out of the driver's seat. He had a youthful face despite being middle-aged. Not because he'd taken care of himself, but because I doubted he'd ever smiled enough to earn a wrinkle. He wore the sort of suit and tie that could only be bought with the salary of an honest man. He had a thin build that was surprisingly effective at wrestling bloggers to the ground.

“Sara,” I said. “Meet Detective Alvin Bradshaw.”

“Oh?” she said. Then it clicked. “Ohhhh.”

“Brian Lyle Foster,” he said with his usual contempt. Then he turned to Sara, his expression softening. “Miss Bishop.”

“Sorry we can't stay and chat.” I reached up to close the trunk. “We've got a busy day ahead of us.”

He stopped me.

“Do you know a man named Roy Foster Junior?”

I tried not to groan. I really tried. But damn it, how could my cousin screw up simple surveillance?

Or maybe the screw-up was asking him to do it in the first place. Feel free to discuss that in the comments section.

Sara spoke up. “Are we being detained?”

“Not you, ma'am,” Detective Bradshaw said. “But I'd think twice about the company you keep.”

“That’s not a very nice way to talk about my boyfriend.”

Boyfriend. Despite I was staring down an armed servant of the state that hated my guts I still felt warm and fuzzy for a moment. I tried to close the trunk again.

He stopped me, then opened the cooler and started rooting around in it. “Hey!” I shouted, “Fourth amendment.”

“Hey,” he deadpanned and held up a ziplock bag with an egg salad sandwich, “Probable cause.”

“What? That sandwich’s only crime is being delicous.”

“The bag Foster. drug paraphernalia.”

Sara said, "We're not on drugs!"

Then Bradshaw said, “Do you know your boyfriend’s cousin was just arrested in Delaware for cocaine possesion.”

“And?” I said trying to keep the panic I was feeling from reaching my vocal cords.

"Of course we know," Sara said, reaching into her pocket. She pulled out the thick envelope Mrs. Vincenzo had given her. "We're heading there to post his bail."

And faster than you could say asset forfeiture his eyes lit up…

###

The Interrogation Of Sara Bishop

...Sara Bishop here. Brian asked me to tell this part because, while he was sitting in a holding cell somewhere, I was in an interview room with Detective Alvin Bradshaw.

He'd brought in a female officer to make me feel more comfortable. Officer Kelton arrived in full uniform, her duty belt clinking softly every time she shifted her weight. I'm grateful for the effort, but she was not the kind of person meant to make anyone comfortable. Short-haired and hard-faced, she reminded me of the overnight orderlies on the psych ward. The ones who'd decided you were going to be a problem patient before you'd even opened your mouth.

Detective Bradshaw offered me a Pepsi. I asked if he had Coke. He said no, so I asked for a Dr Pepper instead. He left to get it, and I sat there trying not to make eye contact with Officer Kelton.

Then she spoke.

They were the only words we ever exchanged.

"You know Roy Foster, huh?"

"...Yeah."

And that was it.

When he came back with the can of Dr Pepper, I opened it and drank greedily. I know all the police shows say never to do that—that they'll use the can to put your DNA into a database—but I'm pretty sure I'm already in a dozen databases. We all are.

Besides, being nervous makes me thirsty.

My grandmother and I used to drink Dr Pepper together when I stayed with her over Christmas break. Whenever I taste it now, it tastes like melancholy.

"Your father told me a lot about you," Detective Bradshaw began.

I glanced at the one-way mirror behind him. Was Dad on the other side of it?

"What did he say?" I asked.

"He's worried about you," Detective Bradshaw said simply. "He says you're a troubled girl."

"I'm twenty-one, for God's sake."

He raised a hand. "Sorry. You're right."

"And maybe I am troubled," I said. "Is that a crime?"

"No."

He smiled. It was a small smile, but it was there.

"It's human."

Officer Kelton snorted.

The smile vanished. Detective Bradshaw turned toward her and gave her a look that was honestly a little frightening. He held it until she shifted uncomfortably in her chair.

I found myself wondering how many times Brian had been on the receiving end of that particular look.

"Did I ever tell you how I met Brian Foster?"

"He said he interfered in one of your investigations. There was a blog post about it, but you made him take it down."

"Our legal team made him take it down," Detective Bradshaw corrected. "He crossed the line between lunatic ramblings and slander."

I took another sip of my Dr Pepper.

"If you say so."

There was a long pause. The kind where you can almost hear someone arguing with themselves. Then he started to speak again.

"It was maybe three, three and a half years ago. Remember when all those people ended up sick or dead in downtown Albany?"

I remembered all right. It was the talk of my senior year of high school. That's a little embarrassing to think about, really.

"Everyone was freaking out. They thought it was some kind of biohazard, chemical attack, or pandemic. We had the FBI, Homeland Security, and the CDC crawling all over everything. And who got stuck dealing with them? Me."

"My dad says the only reward for hard work is more work," I said.

That brought his little smile back. Briefly.

He continued. "One day your 'boyfriend' showed up at my desk, and he already had a history. I think he told you what happened to his mother?"

"He explained," I said.

I wondered if he could tell I was lying. I had the strange feeling Officer Kelton could, but she stayed quiet.

Bradshaw continued. "Like I said, word was already out on him. But of course I had to listen to what he had to say. If I didn't, and it got back to the suits in D.C...."

"What did he think was going on?"

Detective Bradshaw shifted in his seat.

"He told me these deaths weren't the work of terrorists, or some isolated nutjob, or just a damn flu bug with ambition. He said it had something to do with the new exhibit at the Albany Museum of Art and History."

Honestly, I could picture Brian desperately trying to explain all of that to this man. I'm sure you can too.

The thing that gets me—the thing that makes me love Brian—is that he had to know no one was going to believe him.

But he still walked into that police station anyway.

I glanced over at Officer Kelton. Her stony expression had just the faintest hint of smugness to it. I realized then that she'd heard this story before... and that maybe Detective Bradshaw didn't enjoy telling it.

"The museum had just opened a new exhibit," he said. "A loan from the Uffizi Galleries. Some pottery they'd dug up over in Italy. Pre-Roman, I think. Ugly-ass cookie-jar-looking things with carved human heads for lids. Funeral urns or something. One of them was different, though. The lid wasn't another head. It was a smooth stone half-sphere, but when you lifted it over, there was a human face carved into the inside, staring up at you."

He shook his head.

"Then Foster tells me it contains the remains of something called a Candle Baron, which, according to him, was some kind of evil spirit from another world."

This is so Brian, I thought.

"Then he tells me we have to destroy the container to stop this evil spirit. Even if I'd believed him, that thing was a priceless artifact worth more than my pension."

He gave a little shrug.

"So, yes, it gave me a great deal of pleasure to throw him out of my office. I wasn't all that surprised when the museum alarm went off a couple of nights later. You do this job long enough, you develop a feel for which lunatics are just going to keep talking... and which ones are going to act out.”

Act out.

It struck me as an odd choice of words. Like he was talking about a toddler throwing a tantrum instead of a grown man trying to save the world.

"So I got to the museum shortly after the patrol officers. They were both lying on the sidewalk. One was dead. The other was puking his guts out. The front doors of the place were wide open."

“I didn't bother looking around. I went straight to the special exhibit.” He grimaced, "Sure enough, Brian Foster was there, but he wasn't alone. He was fighting with some homeless broad I'd seen hanging around a few of the crime scenes. We'd interviewed her as a witness, but she barely said a word. Just sat there playing with one of her cigarette lighters. She had dozens of them."

Officer Kelton shifted in her chair. There was an air of anticipation about her, like someone waiting for a joke to reach the punchline. A particularly mean joke.

"So there she was, chasing Brian Foster around one of the glass cases where they keep the mummies. She's got this huge knife in her hand, and she'd already cut him up pretty good. I don't know where she got the damn thing. She sure didn't have it when we brought her in for questioning."

I thought about earlier that morning, when Brian and I had been together. I'd traced my fingers over all his scars. He had more than a dozen of them now.

Which one was this?

"I also notice Foster's wearing one of those flu-germ mask things. I order them both onto the floor, but all that does is make the crazy lady even crazier. She forgets all about Foster and comes right at me, swinging that knife and screaming complete nonsense."

He looked down at the table.

"So I shot her. Almost point-blank."

He paused and shook his head ever so slightly.

"Thirteen years on the force, and that was the first time I ever shot somebody."

He looked back up.

"But you don't get to think about that in the moment. I yelled at Foster to get down again..."

He frowned.

"...and then he pointed behind me and screamed, 'Behind you!'"

Officer Kelton was really leaning forward now, Detective Bradshaw didn’t notice but I did. I wish he had.

Instead he continued, “I thought I saw something. I was spooked, my nerves, the adrenalin, the whole thing but I thought I saw something out of the corner of my eye. I didn't think. It was just training. I spun around and fired. And hit one of the damn ugly-ass cookie jars. Of course it was the one with the inside-out face for a lid.”

And there it was. No wonder he hated Brian.

“Stuff comes running out of it, at first I think it’s wine, then I think it’s blood but it wasn’t either. The CDC techs said it was wine mixed with some other substance they couldn’t identify.” He shook his head, “Of course I wasn't thinking about that. I was thinking about being demoted and never getting my detective's stripes back. I was thinking about who the hell was going to pay for this.”

I didn't look at Officer Kelton. I kept my eyes on the man telling me the story.

Empathy. My mother always said it was one of my greatest character flaws. I couldn't help feeling for him. Not because of Brian, but because of unintended consequences. There are always unintended consequences.

"So what happened?"

He opened his mouth, then seemed to remember where he was.

"That's not important."

He leaned back in his chair.

"What's important is that Brian Foster thinks he's some kind of hero fighting monsters from beyond the grave. That's what makes him dangerous."

He started counting them off on his fingers.

"Ask him about Osric Langhorne. Ask him about Johnny Disco. Ask him what happened in Washington Park."

His voice hardened.

"Ask him why an escaped fugitive awaiting arraignment was found dead in the woods the very same night he was searching the Internet for help finding her."

He looked me square in the eye.

"Ask him. Don't read the version filtered through his sick brain."

I wanted to tell him then. I wanted to tell him what I'd seen with my own eyes. About the things that shouldn't exist. About the things I'd started worrying might exist inside me.

But Officer Kelton was still in the room. Every time I looked at her, something inside me stiffened. If I'm being honest, it was the part of me where the other Sara sometimes whispered.

And if I said any of that out loud, what would Detective Bradshaw hear? The truth? Or just another troubled girl with a sick brain?

If Dad was standing behind that mirror, I already knew what he'd hear.

So instead I defaulted to the one thing my older brother Richard had always told me to say to the police.

"Am I being detained?"

He'd always said to ask that—and then keep my mouth shut.

"No, you are not being detained," Detective Bradshaw said. He sounded almost disappointed. "Foster's getting a cavity search, so we had some time to kill. I thought we should talk. There are people who care about your well-being."

"Thank you for that," I said. And I meant it. "But this isn't what you think it is. It isn't even close."

And that was when the door to the interview room opened. A woman entered, escorted by an officer. She was smartly dressed, with a soft, round face, a sturdy build, and the kind of swagger that suggested she wasn't intimidated by anyone. She looked like the sort of woman who could stare down someone like Officer Kelton, and I found myself hoping she would. "Sara Bishop? Lucy Harker, Harker & Huld Legal Group. Brian Foster asked us to represent you."

This wasn't what I'd expected at all. Brian always talked about having Harker & Huld on speed dial, but I'd assumed any law firm with a personalized rap jingle had to be at least a little sleazy.

“Good afternoon, Lucy.” Detective Bradshaw said. Then he whispered in Kelton’s ear dismissing her.

“Ms. Harker please, Detective Bradshaw.” There was an iciness in the way she addressed him that made me suspect either years of courtroom battles or one spectacularly bad first date, "Sara, it's time to go. Brian's waiting in my car."

I stood up and said, “Thank you Detective Bradshaw.”

That surprised him. It surprised Ms. Harker, too.

Ms. Harker said, “I assume she is going to get her money back?”

"I'll make sure it's waiting for you at the front desk."

He reached into his jacket and handed me his card.

"If there are any problems, call me."

I hesitated.

"You're not safe," he said again.

It was Ms. Harker who acted. She gently pushed his hand away.

"Enough of that, please."

Then she hustled me out of the police station, asking what I'd told them the entire way and scolding me for being such a Chatty Kathy.

By the time we reached her car, Brian was already sitting in the back seat.

"What happened?" he asked the moment I climbed in.

I didn't answer right away.

I was too busy watching my mother burst out of the police station, waving her arms as she tried to get our attention.

Ms. Harker glanced in the rearview mirror, put the car in gear, and drove away.

We headed back toward the pawn shop, where our cooler full of melted ice and soggy egg salad sandwiches was still waiting for us.

###

…and I'm back. We didn't get on the road until sunset, so we aren't going to reach Bridgeville, Delaware, until after midnight. My amended plan is, God willing, to bail Cousin Roy out of jail, slap him a few times, then start our caper.

I've been driving for about two hours now, so it's around 9:20 p.m., and we're roughly thirty percent of the way there.

While I drove, Sara wrote up what happened with Bradshaw and read it back to me.

Lord, does that man frost my bunions. Using every cop trick in the book to convince Sara I'm some kind of Don Quixote with a blast radius.

Now she's got it in her head—just like Atwater—that Detective Bradshaw is simply misunderstood.

But to quote Cousin Roy: "Fuck the police."

Although, judging by what Officer Kelton said, he just might. Roy always did have a thing for women built like linebackers.

Oh, and just so you know, there totally was something behind him. The fact that the man can't aim for shit probably saved dozens of lives. Admittedly, one of them was mine.

Oh and something else - those were Etruscan artifacts. Etruscan! You would think Mr. Super Detective could read the signage in a museum.

Oh and also, did you notice he reads my blog. Reads every post I bet. Hey, Bradshaw, you in the comments section? You know how I know you read my blog. BECAUSE I CAN HEAR YOUR LIPS MOVING ALL THE WAY AT MY HOUSE!

Ever wonder how I can post all this crazy stuff to the public and never get arrested? Because to lock me up, the powers that be would first have to admit that—as Sara put it—the Darkness was never empty. There'd be interviews, depositions, and poorly spelled police reports to contend with. Better to let the lie go on. Better to let Brian Foster stumble around fighting killer clowns that open a task force to chase down the grease-painted goons.

Bradshaw you say Sara’s not safe?

Well you are part of the reason why.

Brian Foster out. I’ll check in with you all when we get to the First State.

The Night Blogger blogs on!

2026-09-02T17:48:24.414-04:00

My name is Brian Foster and some people call me The Night Blogger. .."

Episode One 'The Graveyard Game'

Join The Night Blogger as he unravels the true story behind 'The Graveyard Game' in a spine-tingling tale of possession and the supernatural

Episode Two 'Whispers of the Red Night'

Unearthing the past could cost the Night Blogger more than his life as he uncovers the truth behind a string of gruesome murders.

Episode Three 'A Firesign Variation'

The Night Blogger investigates Albany's ghost bus, and it could be his final destination.

Episode Four 'Shadow Of The Zombie'

A bizarre case involving meth and fantasy video games leads the Night Blogger into the deadly reality of murder and magic.

Episode Five 'Digging In The Dirt'

The Night Blogger discovers the Graveyard Game isn't over, and a secret awaits Sara Bishop in Pinewood Cemetery.

Episode Six 'Direct Market Thing'

An undercover investigation into a multi-level marketing scheme uncovers chilling truths behind recent disappearances.

Episode Seven 'The Owls And The Lizards And The Big Broke Moon'

Unexpected visitors to Vincenzo’s pawnshop interrupt the Night Blogger's investigation and lead to a surprising declaration.

Episode Eight 'Dare To Grin'

The Night Blogger delves into the mind of a serial killer.

Episode Nine 'A Trace Of Arson'

The Night Blogger investigates a series of spontaneous human combustions.

Episode Ten 'The Crimson Chimes'

The Night Blogger and his friends delve deeper into the secrets of Gorgo, Luna, and the Thousand-Faced Moon, only to realize they may need the help of a woman who claims to be the Devil.

Episode Eleven 'Nuts And Bolts'

An encounter with a mysterious doctor leads to twisted experiments and a night of terror.

Episode Twelve 'The Old Man And The Siege'

The Night Blogger uncovers the chilling mystery of a Marine's encounters with the enigmatic Old Man in black sunglasses during the Vietnam War.

Episode Thirteen 'Back From The Shadows Again'

The Night Blogger date with Sara turns into a night of terror and confusion.

Episode Fourteen 'The Rally'

A quiet evening with Sara prompts the Night Blogger to recount the chilling supernatural event that set him on the path to becoming a hunter of monsters.

Episode Fifteen 'Run In With The Devil'

Hoping to save Sara, the Night Blogger turns to the one woman who claims to be the Devil—and discovers that some legends are more dangerous than monsters.

Episode Sixteen 'Demon In Lace'

The Night Blogger's search for the mysterious Eternal Codex leads him into a world of forbidden knowledge, ancient secrets, and a book that may not want to be found.

Episode Seventeen 'Brian Foster and the Curse of the Cartwrights'

Episode Eighteen 'Muldwych After Dark'

An impossible radio broadcast recounts the Night Blogger’s encounter with a monstrous creature he never told anyone about, leaving Brian to wonder who—or what—is listening.

THE NIGHT BLOGGER The Graveyard Game (and other cemetery plots) Episode Eighteen 'Muldwych After Dark'

2026-08-27T09:30:00.000-04:00

By Al Bruno III

March 28th: Just to bring you up to speed, Sara’s parents have stayed away from the pawn shop but continue to blow up her phone. Meanwhile I continue to plan our little Delaware caper. Caper might be a little dramatic but trust me, if I was going to do what I had to do, it was going to be a full-on Ocean's Eleven situation. Just with a lot fewer beautiful people.

And I'd be robbing a trailer park instead of a casino. Specifically, a trailer park where a guy calling himself Rhett Vane—which is about as fake a name as Nathaniel Blades on my fake ID—was keeping a mystical tome that occasionally regrew its own pages.

I'd already tasked Cousin Roy with performing a little reconnaissance of Bayard Estates in Bridgeville, Delaware. It should be noted that Manufactured Home Parks get a bad rap; many are carefully curated and managed and serve the many Americans aging into or out of home ownership.

Bayard Estates, unfortunately, was not one of those places. It had a bad reputation of being a nest of criminals and crazies which means that by tomorrow the residents will probably have made Cousin Roy their king.

As for Sara and me, things had gotten pretty intense. There had been, as Robert Plant once put it, "A Whole Lotta Love." We even took a day trip to Lake George, a place I hadn't visited since that awful day in 2009 with Osrick Langhorne and The House That Dripped Clichés.

But we're not going to talk about that.

We're going to talk about Sara and me playing classic arcade games (where we kissed), wandering through a wonderfully creepy wax museum built inside an actual old house (where we smooched), taking a horse-and-buggy ride (where we canoodled), and finishing the day aboard a steamboat cruise (where we were politely—but firmly—asked to knock it off).

And now? Right now? I'm doing some classic Night Blogger-style Internet research while Sara happily mans the cash register and takes calls. She told me she'd never been happier with a job. She loved the normalcy of it. The biggest emergency she'd handled all week was a customer trying to convince her that a chipped Elvis cookie jar was an antique.

Oh, and speaking of antiques... Mrs. Vincenzo.

No, I'm not saying she's an antique, so don't email her and tell her I said that. Anyway, Mrs. Vincenzo's off on another antiquing excursion. That's the deal: she gets a few days to go to Vermont, then I get a few days to go to Delaware.

And with any luck, we're both going to come home with something old and valuable.

But one thing happened today that I did not expect. An email from Bunny Joe.

Let me tell you about Bunny Joe. He used to be a member of the FEAR AND TRUTH message board, but he eventually got kicked out because no matter what conversation he joined, he always dragged it hopelessly off topic. We'd be discussing UFO sightings in the Hudson Valley and he'd suddenly start explaining how kaiju were race memories. We'd be talking about the Salem Witch Trials and before long he had everyone arguing that the popularity of the erotic thriller genre could be used to map the American recession. Then came the day he somehow managed to bring Holocaust denial into a discussion about Bigfoot skepticism.

And he was out.

When I got the email—with its attached WAV file—I deleted it on general principle. Then I immediately felt guilty and recovered it. Bunny Joe explained that he'd been researching a correlation between numbers stations and serial killers when he stumbled across the following transmission. He insisted it was imperative that I give it a listen.

The file was called ‘MLDWCH040210’.

So once again, he'd managed to drag me off topic.

The voice on the recording belonged to a woman. Smoky and deep, like a jazz singer coming into her prime, but flattened by the narrow bandwidth of an old AM radio. Static kept washing over her words until it sounded less like she was speaking into a microphone than trying to talk through a thunderstorm…

###

Transcript of audio file MLDWCH040210

...this is Sweet Jane and I will be talking to you from nightrise to dayfall, because this is Muldwych After Dark.

Tonight we will forgo our standard, never-ending, and slightly compulsive discussion of our little town's lost dreams and found nightmares. Tomorrow, I promise, we shall return to the notebook discovered in the scrapyard, and to the many possible reasons why our late Police Chief Clarence Marlow donated his entire body—save for his skull—to medical science. Those matters remain important. They will still be waiting for us in the morning.

But tonight we have a story.

A story about Him.

He does not live in our fair, five-sided town of Muldwych Corners, but I consider him both a kindred spirit and a lost soul. He is a stalker of mysteries, a martyr for the ordinary world, and a blogger of the night. The tales of His tragedies, His triumphs, and His complete misunderstanding of the linked cosmos-atoms that comprise the immediate super-cosmos of curves, angles, material organization, semi-material organization, and those electronic arrangements that politely decline to become either, make for good reading.

And this is, as I promised, a story about Him.

His story begins in New York's Hudson Valley, in the forests bordering the Croton Falls Reservoir. Strange lights are often reported there. In popular parlance they are called Unidentified Flying Objects. But if you cannot identify them, how can you be certain they are truly flying? Or that they are objects at all? Reality, and indeed spatial organization, are—as you already know—subjective.

It is a regular occurrence for UFO enthusiasts to prowl the forests around the Croton Falls Reservoir, but He is the only person there on this particular night. He has heard disturbing stories, far more disturbing than usual. There were reports of a loud yet curiously muffled whup-whup-whup sound, of a wind pressing down from above that pressed the trees earthward and sent the hitherto unseen local wildlife scattering. They say that even the Lesser Zoogs are left unsettled.

A lucky few left the forest with a handful of blurry photographs or a few minutes of jittery video. One particularly desperate soul emerged clutching a deeply unnerving keychain. Most, however, left with nothing more than the certainty that their most deeply held beliefs were true—and ran screaming because of it.

One UFO enthusiast never left the forest at all. At least not entirely. What they recovered of him fit into a fairly small bucket.

That is precisely the sort of mystery He could not resist. Such is the burden of being a self-appointed seeker of truth in a straw fedora.

But now let us pause in our story and go to the weather.

Tomorrow's forecast calls for a high of sixty degrees, possible rainfall, and probable spiders. Dress accordingly.

Now then... where were we?

Ah yes. Him.

The UFOs have been glimpsed at every hour of the day, but He enters the treeline at dusk. He has long been a creature of the sunset. He seeks them out because He carries one in His heart.

This is His fifth visit to the forest at the edge of the Croton Falls Reservoir. He wanders more than He searches, as we all do in our own way. He taps notes into His iPhone, describing the cool air and the glittering stars. He struggles to find something poetic to say and fails. Instead, He writes something wry and cynical. That always comes easily to Him.

He does not think aliens are the cause of all this. He does not believe in aliens at all. It remains uncertain whether the aliens believe in Him.

His suspicion is that things wished for with sufficient fervor become real. Some people call them tulpas. Others call them hallucinations. The wise avoid naming them altogether.

Somewhere nearby an owl hoots and a rodent squeals - another battle in the unending war. The sound makes His skin crawl, especially since He already feels like He is being watched from afar, like some other voice has begun narrating His life. Will He ever learn that the only author of our existence is soulless chaos? I like to think I will be the one to tell Him should He ever find his way to our pleasant little town.

As far as He is concerned, the only explanation for the mad wind, the bending trees, the scurrying wildlife, and the heavy whup-whup-whup sound is black helicopters. If you asked Him why He thought such a thing, He would show you a photograph of the dismembered UFO enthusiast and remark, "Why do you think they call them choppers?"

How quaint. Black helicopters are so 1990s. As we all learned on the recent PBS documentary Secret government conspiracies do not bother with aircraft anymore, not when they can get everything done with a stroke of a keyboard and a blast of microwaves.

And speaking of microwaves, today's installment of Muldwych After Dark is brought to you by Hubbard Brand Aluminum Foil. Settle for less and you might lose your mind!

Now back to our story about Him.

Clouds, those earliest adopters of recycling, have begun to creep in from the west and He is pacing. The urge to go home is strong but He is afraid He will miss something if He leaves now, but in the end we all miss something; every day we miss a million somethings, we glimpse people and places we will never fathom. We overhear conversations that were never meant for us. We walk away just before miracles or disasters begin. Here in Muldwych Corners we find that state of confusion to be a delightful thing. Something to be savored like raspberries on the tongue.

At three AM, that most desolate hour of the night, He hears a whup-whup-whup sound approaching from the east. He moves towards it, pushing against the sudden roaring wind. The trees bend, the leaves flutter and tear free of their branches. He hears a panicked Lesser Zoog hiss and scamper away. He does not see it. People rarely do. With each step closer His straw fedora threatens to go flying from his head and He has to use His free hand to keep it in place. His free hand is almost always His left one. It spends a remarkable amount of time holding that fedora in place.

The louder and closer the whup-whup-whup sound gets the more He comes to understand that the sound is not really like a chopper at all. The wind that whips around him is thick like the breath of reptiles. The urge to run screams up from His hypothalamus but He ignores it, as He usually does. He and his hypothalamus have rarely aligned.

He has to see.

He has to know.

No matter the cost. And He knows better than most that the cost can be terrible.

We interrupt this story about Him to bring you this important announcement.

It has come to our attention that sources close to Muldwych Corners mayor Timothy Knight report that he will soon come to a decision about installing a display of the Ten Commandments at the county courthouse. While most of the residents of Muldwych Corners support the idea of a giant granite display of religious principles being erected in a municipal government building there has been a long and frequently violent debate about which religious principles it could be. No matter what the final decision is, local Atheists and adherents to the Code of Hammurabi plan to protest.

With that bit of business done we will return to the story about Him.

He is standing still now, frozen in place. Four lights wink into existence. They grow larger. Wider and wider. The whup-whup-whup has become a thick, droning buzz. He raises His iPhone, unsure if the fusion of first world technology and third world labor will be enough to capture the image of what He sees.

What does He see? The silhouette of an impossible wasp, larger than His car and smaller than the helicopter He had expected. The outline is dark and jagged. It hovers in place. The cold phosphorescence of its quartet of eyes reveals a swollen, savagely hooked proboscis.

Now He sees.

Now He knows.

And it, this creature that is not a chopper, this wasp that is too large to be a wasp, sees Him as well. An edge of hunger has crept into the droning of its wings. Those wings that move too fast to be seen but are undeniable in their force, the force that drives Him to His knees and sends His straw fedora fluttering away.

There is no doubt in His mind that He is doomed, that at any moment He will be swallowed up and all but His least desirable morsels spit back into the forest.

All He wants is one picture, an image his smartphone will automatically upload to the Internet. He wants the residents of the ordinary world to see the truth as He sees it. It is the only legacy He has ever wanted.

He lets the lights get closer and closer still.

The creature’s proboscis quivers in anticipation.

He snaps the photograph.

The flash of his smartphone's LED lights up the forest at the edge of the Croton Falls Reservoir.

The wind stops, the quartet of eyes flicker and go out. The droning roar becomes a whup-whup-whup sound that grows further and further away until it is lost to a single, whispering splash.

It will take Him a few minutes to catch his breath and half an hour to find His hat. In an hour he will realize His picture never came out.

But in this moment He is overwhelmed with the ecstasy of insight.

Was it the flash of the smartphone that frightened the creature away?

Was it some electromagnetic pulse beyond the range of human hearing?

Was it irony?

Was it luck?

Or had the creature merely seen enough of Him?

This concludes our story about Him and tonight’s installment of Muldwych After Dark. As the dayfall begins we will close out the show with a rare bootleg recording of the Captain and Tennille covering Joy Division’s classic tune ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’.

Good morning Muldwych, good morning…

###

...I had to sit back and think for a long time about what I'd just heard. Sara needed a price check and had to call my name three times before I even realized it. Still dazed, I wandered over, did the price check, and that's how some lucky schlub got a flat-screen TV for sixty bucks.

Sara didn't stop the sale because she was too busy watching me. After the customer left, she told me I looked pale. She thought I was getting sick. I shrugged it off and blamed it on working too hard.

Instead, Sara decided to close the shop early, leave the electronics downstairs, and take me upstairs.

The rest of the night was blissfully, stubbornly in the moment. A snapshot of something better—the kind of life I wanted for the rest of my days.

We slept in each other’s arms until I woke up at 3 a.m. It wasn't my bladder; it was that the itching in the back of my brain was back again. I thought of Sweet Jane’s voice;

“He has to see.

He has to know.

No matter the cost.”

I stared at the ceiling for a little while longer before getting up to make this post.

I don't share every part of my life here. There are false leads that don't pan out, periods when I spent more time playing Madden NFL 12 than trying to figure out what the Hell a Zoog is.

So now I can tell you that yes, indeed, I was deep in the woods surrounding the Croton Falls Reservoir on the night of April 2, 2010. Back then, I would have told you I was there because I wanted to disprove all the online chatter about UFOs—chatter whipped into a frenzy by a death that had begun to reek of a cover-up.

Now, though, I sometimes wonder if I was really looking for a way to get myself killed. I wasn't in the best place back then. When you've lost your family and your dreams, Internet fame isn't worth a jug of warm spit.

I did write the whole strange story up, but I never posted it. I just deleted the file, afraid you, dear readers, might think I'd spent the night smoking weed and watching Ray Harryhausen movies.

Obviously our relationship is better now.

But here's the important thing: I was alone, and I never told anyone—before or afterward—where I was going. Not you. Not Mrs. Vincenzo. Not my new friends from the FEAR AND TRUTH message board. Not my parole officer. And certainly not some obscure radio personality from who knows where.

Item: The station that broadcasts Muldwych After Dark has no call sign, and there is no town named Muldwych Corners on any map. The program ordinarily covers local news and politics, traffic, weather, upcoming festivals, and community events. Broadcasts are frequently interrupted by philosophical digressions, sponsor messages, and ruminations on the unending chain of linked cosmos-atoms which makes up the immediate super-cosmos of curves, angles, and material and semi-material electronic organization.

There. See? I can do it too.

But anyway, I guess Sweet Jane figured my adventures would be good for sweeps week.

Item: The recording ended before the music started to play and now the thought of Toni Tennile singing the lyric ‘…There’s a taste in my mouth as desperation takes hold’ is haunting my dreams.

Item: There have been no further sightings of that insect-like creature. I am pretty sure, or maybe just hope, it has retreated to wherever it was hiding beneath the reservoir.

I wish I had more answers. I wish I knew how Muldwych After Dark saw into my life, into my very thoughts. I almost wish I'd never pressed play.

Most of all, I wish I knew what was waiting for us once we got to Delaware.

But all I can say now is good night, Sweet Jane. Wherever you are... good night.

THE NIGHT BLOGGER The Graveyard Game (and other cemetery plots) Episode Seventeen 'Brian Foster and the Curse of the Cartwrights'

2026-08-20T14:30:00.000-04:00

By Al Bruno III

March 28th: “WAAAAGH!” I said.

My face was on fire. Not literal fire but a chemically induced one. Sara's mother had emptied half a can of mace into my face, and now my nostrils burned with snot, my eyes swelled shut, and the combination of chili pepper extract and tear gas had worked its way into my throat, leaving me with the sensation of drowning in a too-hot Jacuzzi.

“WAAAAGH!” I said again.

“Oh my God!” Sara shouted. “Brian! Oh my God!”

“Serves him right!” Her Mom said, “Sick weirdo dragging you into the occult.”

“He didn’t drag me into anything!”

I was curled into a ball in front of the cash register while Sara knelt beside me, desperately trying to wipe the mace from my eyes. I wanted to tell her not to do that—that she was only going to contaminate herself—but all I could manage was, "WAAAAAGH!" Somewhere in there I'd also developed an almost cartoonish sputtering noise.

Then Sara’s father spoke, “You don’t know what you're talking about. We've done our homework on this guy…”

“WAAAAGH!” Not the blog readers I expected.

“…and I have it on good authority that he is a charlatan who preys on frightened people. He fills people’s heads with paranoia until they can't tell what's real anymore…”

“WAAAAAGH!” Even in my agony, that condemnation sounded awfully familiar.

“…we spoke to the police to a Detective Bradshaw, and he said that he’s either morally degenerate or mentally degenerate.”

“WAAAAGH!” There ya go. I knew it.

Sara yelled, “Mrs. Vincenzo! I need water! Lots of water!”

Sara’s mother said, “You need to come home right now! I won’t have you bringing further humiliation to this family.”

And her father added, “And working at a pawn shop for God’s sake. Do you know what pawn shops are? Taxes for stupid people.”

“WAAAAGH!”

Smash cut.

Hours later, my eyes were still puffy and weepy; I couldn’t stop sniffling, and my voice had been reduced to an ugly rasp. I sounded like Tom Waits after peeling onions. “You know you’re the first girl whose parents I ever met.”

“That was the worst ever.” Sara was staring into her glass of apple-flavored mead.

We were at Albany's only meadery, a little hole in the wall on the corner of Second Street. It was called The Ferment Tavern, and the mead was genuinely good while the décor looked like someone had given a Renaissance Faire a Spirit Halloween budget. It was close enough to the university to attract a steady stream of students, but just weird enough that it never got too crowded.

I liked the place because it was quiet on the weeknights and the owners were a pair of friendly ex-bikers who had taken one too many falls and were more interested in serving the customers than chatting them up.

One of Ferment Tavern's best libations was called ‘Superstition’; it was an absolutely delicious concoction of blackberry mead and burbon severed in a jelly jar because why not? I used my right hand to finish it and my left to request a refill. The co-owner Margret already had one ready.

Yeah, go on and tell me psychic phenomena isn’t real.

“Are you sure you don’t want to go to the emergency room?” Sara asked, “Your eyes are still really bloodshot.”

“It’ll pass; I’ll be about 90% by the morning,” I said, “I have it on good authority.”

“Whose authority?” Sara asked, then caught herself, “Cousin Roy.”

“Yup, apparently he got maced a lot back in the 90’s when he was a roadie for Severe Tire Damage.”

She took another sip of her drink then said, “Again, I am so sorry, Brian.”

“I should have expected something like this. Maybe we should have told them you were staying at a friends or something.”

“I don’t have any friends.”

“Mrs. Vincenzo would be hurt.”

“You know what I mean.” She cracked a smile, “Girls my own age.”

“And guys who aren’t morally degenerate charlatans.”

“You’re no charlatan,” She had been holding her mug of apple-mead in both hands, she let go with her left and placed it over mine. It felt cool and frail, just like her smile, “And I’ve slept with you, you’re not even remotely degenerate.”

“What a traumatic compliment.”

Interest in the supernatural and sleepwalking had been bad enough, but now she was running around with a crowd that cared more about cryptids than which fork was for salads. At best, her parents were going to interfere. At worst, they were going to convince every psychiatrist, family friend, and judge within fifty miles that she was having a psychotic break. This was not good. Not when we had a kind of plan - steal the Codex, use it to defile the temples of Gorgo, Mormo and Luna, retire or hand over my blog and investigations to someone else and find a way to live the happiest most boring life possible with Sara.

Wow. It seems so easy when you look at it in print.

“So what now?” Sara asked.

I took another sip of Superstition before answering. “Road trip. I’ve got a book to get.”

“You mean steal?”

“Most people don’t give up their mystical tomes to strangers in straw hats.”

Sara nodded, “So we’re going to Delaware…”

“We? Oh no no no. You’re going to stay here and watch the pawn shop.”

“I’m not allowed to go on my own rescue mission?” She frowned, “Am I just your little damsel in distress?”

I have to tell you that if in that moment her mother rushed up and maced me again I might now have been all that upset.

“No…” I squirmed both mentally and physically, “It’s just that I might bring Cousin Roy and he gets really gassy on car rides…”

A trio of loud college students, one of which was carrying a box of Dungeons and Dragons supplies walked in the door. I watched them for a few moments, they looked to be about our age but they were younger, inncoent. For them monsters and mages were the thinjgs of entertainment and metaphor.

But not so for people like Sara and myself.

I sighed, “I just want you to be safe.”

The look she gave me was part resigntion and part bravery, “I haven’t been safe since August, Hell maybe before that.”

“I know it’s just… it’s just…” I ran my hand over my face, “Look it’s like the TV show Bonanza.”

"Bonanza?"

"Trust me. This is going somewhere..."

###

…sometimes it seems to me that the world's methodologies for dealing with tragedy are far better developed than the ones we have for happiness. When two people fall in love, there is no instruction manual. No proper timetable for a first kiss, a first romantic interlude, an engagement, or a wedding. But when someone dies, an entire machine lurches into motion. EMTs. Coroners. Funeral homes. Grieving. Gatherings.

And for me, in that terrible April of 2009, it was all happening in stereo. Uncle Roy was dead. Burst blood vessel, they said, though nobody sounded entirely certain. My mom and Aunt Peg were working together with uncharacteristic harmony to make the arrangements to send Uncle Roy's remains to his home state of Florida. Which is good because Cousin Roy had pretty much collapsed. His bravado was broken.

Meanwhile Grandma Gail’s rally was going into overtime, she was happy, she was energetic watching TV and trying to keep Aunt Gail’s twin boys entertained, of course for her entertained was watching Bonanza reruns on TNN and making commentary on the events of the episode. It was things like;

“Wasn’t Michael Landon handsome?”

“I rode a horse just like that when I was a girl on your great aunt’s farm. His name was Snowball.”

“Oh no. Hoss is in love. That never ends well. Every time one of those Cartwright boys falls in love, she either dies or changes her mind. Mostly she dies. But that’s the thing about love, someone lives, someone dies. It’s part of world. You’ll learn.”

And every time the twins answered with a “Yes Miss Gail.” but each time they seemed a little more desperate to escape.

She showed no sign that two nights ago a half serpent half millipede ribbon of smoke had wormed its way into her mouth and she had reacted like a sleeping lover snuggling into an embrace.

There was no way Grandma Gail's never-ending rally and that thing she'd swallowed two nights earlier weren't connected.

You never forget your first monster. Most folks go into shock, or denial, or straight to church; I on the other hand went to the Internet.

My searches for “red mist” got me info about a movie, a mystery novel and a rumored snuff film involving Squidward from Spongebob Squarepants. That worried me almost as much as the monster itself. Whatever I'd seen appeared to be completely immune to Google.

So off I went to the local library. Much like confession, I hadn't been to the library in years and barely remembered the rituals. The card catalogs from my school days were gone, replaced with conveniently located computers; the once well-stocked periodical section was being crowded out by a DVD
section.

After three frustrating hours, all I carried out of the public library was a single word: Vorvolaka. I’d found it in an article about a rare supplemental volume of Sir George Frazer’s classic work The Golden Bough. The book came out in 1939 and was quickly recalled and suppressed. Why? The official blame was textual and formatting errors but if that was really the case why hadn’t
they reprinted a corrected edition?

After checking in with my mom (doing fine) and Cousin Roy (still a hot mess), I went back to digging. I was a little proud of how well my research was going, .it was almost like I was in college for journalism or something.

Although I hadn't even been away from college for a week, it felt like a lifetime ago. But that had to wait until tomorrow but that tomorrow ended up stretching for the better part of three days. The machinery of grief needed to be fed and it’s fuel was tears and bureaucracy. There had been some delays and confusion regarding the transportation of remains. Cousin Roy wanted his Dad cremated here as quickly as possible, he saw no value in funerals and wakes. Aunt Peg thought that cremation, much like organ donation and assisted suicide doomed the deceased to an eternity in the First Circle of Hell, which of you’ve read your Dante is kind of like an assited living facility for the slightly damned.

This disagreement got heated. And by "heated," I mean there was a scuffle in one of our otherwise very respectable funeral homes. I'm sure you can imagine the whole awful scene. Well, it was worse. By the end they were throwing display urns at each other.

I wasn't there for it. Later, though, Mom and I were sitting in Grandma Gail's room, chowing down on fast food when she told the whole horrifically slapstick story, concluding that somehow she and Tom Wynne got things under control. Grandma Gail went from being shocked at the drama to curious. “Thomas was with you?”

“For moral support,” Mom explained but then she turned to me. “He and I had a long conversation, he and his wife are getting a divorce. Irreconcilable differences.”

Grandma and I paused in mid-chew.

She continued, sounding equal parts giddy and embarrassed. “And he and I have decided to try and start dating.”

This my dear readers is what they call, ‘Burying the lead’.

I offered a heartfelt congratulations, but I found myself wondering how all this domestic drama could be unfolding while my grandmother remained at the center of a supernatural event.

And speaking of Grandma when my hug with my Mom broke I glanced at her. Her expression was not happy or scandalized, her expression was, for lack of a better word inscrutable.

By the time our little family had wrapped everything up, it was far too late to do any more of my planned investigating. So I sat up a little while longer with them. No more Bonanza reruns—just The Tonight Show. Then I went to bed.

Now don't think for a second I didn't barricade myself in my room. At least for a little while, anyway.

You see, one of my many errands that day had been a trip to Vincenzo's Pawn Shop, where I'd picked up a little digital camera that—with a bit of tinkering and some third-party software—could double as a surveillance camera. Somewhere between the opening monologue and Taylor Lautner, I slipped it into what I hoped would be a good hiding place to capture whatever nightmare I'd witnessed earlier.

Thankfully, this was an era when two-liter bottles of Jolt Cola were still commercially available. I found myself nursing one until 3:00 a.m.

Yes. Three a.m. The Witching Hour.

Grandma Gail sat up, the motion so sudden that I thought the camera feed had skipped.

Time to act. I shoved my dresser away from the door, snatched the old silver crucifix I'd received for my Confirmation, and bolted for Grandma's room. Sitting up or not Grandma Gail still looked to be fast asleep, eyes closed, softened features, steady breathing. Except, of course, for the thing. The red thing. The thing that was like a serpent and smoke all at once, worming its way out of her mouth.

What was it? I wondered. Was this a Vorvolaka?

And what did I do at that moment? I held up that silver cross and pulled out every horror movie quote I could think of, "I cast you out! Unclean spirit!"

No reaction. Just the thing, the Vorvolaka coiling out of her mouth like some magician’s handkerchief trick.

I stepped closer waving the cross in a way I hoped was somehow menacing, “The power of Jesus compels you!”

Finally it noticed me. Oh did it ever. It flowed upward until it reached the ceiling, it’s tail end still buried somewhere in my Grandmother’s gullet and regarded me. It had no eyes but oh yes it was sizing me up.

“I cast you out. I cast you out in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit and… that the Virgin Mary too!” I winced inwardly, “So there!”

That was the part that unsettled me most. The Vorvolaka had already proven it could ooze through the screen without difficulty. Opening the window served no practical purpose. It was obeying some instinct—or some rule—I couldn't begin to understand.

It flowed outside, the last bit of it slipping from my Grandma’s lips. She made a choking sound and fell roughly back on the bed. Not breathing. Despite the darkened room and my growing panic I know for a fact she was not breathing.

For one awful moment I became convinced she'd been dead for days. That the thing wearing her had been sitting with us, accepting hugs, watching Bonanza reruns and smiling whenever someone brought her pudding.

And that pissed me off.

And what do you do when your pissed off? Something stupid of course.

I stepped forward and grabbed at the crimson smoke. It was an act of desperation and I expected my hand to pass right through the thing but it was tangible, and warm and had the consistency of a jellyfish.

And it didn’t like being grabbed.

The end of it that was still in the room. It curled in mid-air and attacked. It enveloped me. Everything went red, I fell to the floor of my grandmother’s room. Pain bloomed behind my eyes and suddenly I couldn’t move, suddenly I was entombed in my own body.

Then someone else's memories poured into me.

I was Stuart Shield, the in-home hospice nurse. My shift had ended hours ago, but I was still replaying Grandma Gail's miraculous rally as I endured the miserable ninety-minute drive back to Utica. Mohawk Valley Home Health had done it again—three hours behind the wheel for barely four hours of work. By the time I climbed the four flights of stairs to my apartment, all I wanted was silence.

I didn't bother turning on the lights. I dropped into my favorite chair, closed my eyes for just a moment...

...and beneath the apartment door something red seeped through the crack. It flowed across the floor without making a sound, climbed the back of the chair, and rested around my throat like a warm scarf. It waited. One heartbeat. Two. Three.

Then it forced itself into my mouth and eyes.

Terror. Suffocation. Darkness.

Then I was Brian Foster again, sprawled on Grandma Gail's bedroom floor. Someone was speaking to me and as they did the agony intensified, I expected my skull to burst at any moment. I almost wanted it to happen.

And I thought to myself - Is that what happened to Uncle Roy?

The pain started to pulse, keeping perfect time with my breaths; I imagined it shrinking down to a tiny spark buried deep in my brain that would suddenly blossom out like an explosion of invisible knives. The agony was the color of blood, the color of the Vorvolaka. My field of vision began to diminish, red pressing in on all sides until I was blinded.

I wanted to live, but the red wouldn't let me. Not because I wanted another sunrise, or another shot at life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. No. I wanted to live because I'd glimpsed the secret song of the universe. It was dark. It was ugly. But Goddamn, I wanted to know it. I wanted to understand it.

In the red I could hear the voice, “Don’t struggle oh my sweet. Dream. Dream in the emptiness. The emptiness is love.”

It made perfect sense. Why should I struggle? What was the point of this life? We all end up dead anyway. Why wait? What was I trying to accomplish? Sinking further and further away I had dwindled to a pinprick of consciousness. I barely saw the frail angry figure standing over me but I heard it yell.

“NO!”

The red faded and darkness took its place. I went from dying to dreaming but barely noticed the difference until I was stirred to wakefulness by the warmth early morning sunlight on my face. I was in my bed, tucked in with the covers up to my chin and for one sweet innocent moment I thought that it all must have been a terrible dream

Then I heard my mother's anguished wail, she had just received the news that Tom Wynne was dead.

###

"...Sara... I don't think I understood it back then. Every time you really learn something, something gets taken from you. Maybe it's innocence. Maybe it's certainty. Maybe it's someone you love. But nobody ever walks away from the truth without leaving something behind."

I looked down into my drink.

"Sara... I've left a lot behind."

She touched my face then, “You’re crying.”

Surprised I touched my face, sure enough my fingers came back wet. “Well its good for you right? Like therapy.” I wiped my face on my sleeve and accomplished nothing. Leather jackets and tears don’t mix.

“You think you’re the only one?” She made me look her in the eyes, “I’ve felt something pulling at me since I was a little kid. The darkness was a dare because I know, and you do too, that the darkness was never empty.”

“I’m totally stealing that.”

“Brian. Do you think I only went to Pinewood Cemetery because you said you were going with me?”

Before I could answer, the other owner Frank came over and asked if we wanted another round. We decided to be sensible and just order two waters so one of us would be able to drive home within an hour or so. Behind us, the D&D players' arguments for and against the creation of Picklestein were heating up, and Margret was very gently threatening to throw them out again.

I said, “I assumed we had kind of talked each other into it.”

“I was going to go no matter what. I had been obsessing about the Graveyard Game for months, ever since I read about it on 4Chan.” Our waters arrived. Sara waited for Frank to leave before she spoke again, “And then when I found about Sara Bishop and that she was so damn close… Is there even a word beyond obsessed?”

“Monomaniacal?” I suggested.

She waved it off, “It doesn’t matter. What you need to know is that what happened to me happened because of me. My stupid decision. Possibly the last in a long series.”

“Don’t even joke like that,” I took a sip of water.

“You think I’m like some guest star on Bonanza? That I’m going to die tragically in your arms?”

“...and yet I can't stop thinking it.”

“Maybe you’re the guest star in my show, the whacky neighbor who helps me in my time of need.”

“Whacky neighbor?”

“So I’m going with you, I’m helping you. The only question is what are you going to do about it?” She took a strangely flirtatious sip of her water, “Are you going to be a Millhouse or a Fonzie about it?”

What else could I do?

I gave her a big thumbs up.

INKITT? Sure why not?

2026-08-17T13:36:44.277-04:00

Remember when I said a few months ago that I probably wouldn’t be writing much for a while?

Well, here I am again.

I don’t really have the same bandwidth I used to, so I’ll be working on one project at a time instead of juggling two novels and a podcast.

So...

I hope you’re enjoying the new Night Blogger Adventures. The revised version of “The Graveyard Game” will have plenty of surprises for my old readers.

And speaking of readers...

I have an Inkitt now, and I could really use your support and reviews.

THE NIGHT BLOGGER BLOGS ON!!

2026-08-14T09:28:37.070-04:00

My name is Brian Foster and some people call me The Night Blogger. .."

Episode One 'The Graveyard Game'

Join The Night Blogger as he unravels the true story behind 'The Graveyard Game' in a spine-tingling tale of possession and the supernatural

Episode Two 'Whispers of the Red Night'

Unearthing the past could cost the Night Blogger more than his life as he uncovers the truth behind a string of gruesome murders.

Episode Three 'A Firesign Variation'

The Night Blogger investigates Albany's ghost bus, and it could be his final destination.

Episode Four 'Shadow Of The Zombie'

A bizarre case involving meth and fantasy video games leads the Night Blogger into the deadly reality of murder and magic.

Episode Five 'Digging In The Dirt'

The Night Blogger discovers the Graveyard Game isn't over, and a secret awaits Sara Bishop in Pinewood Cemetery.

Episode Six 'Direct Market Thing'

An undercover investigation into a multi-level marketing scheme uncovers chilling truths behind recent disappearances.

Episode Seven 'The Owls And The Lizards And The Big Broke Moon'

Unexpected visitors to Vincenzo’s pawnshop interrupt the Night Blogger's investigation and lead to a surprising declaration.

Episode Eight 'Dare To Grin'

The Night Blogger delves into the mind of a serial killer.

Episode Nine 'A Trace Of Arson'

The Night Blogger investigates a series of spontaneous human combustions.

Episode Ten 'The Crimson Chimes'

The Night Blogger and his friends delve deeper into the secrets of Gorgo, Luna, and the Thousand-Faced Moon, only to realize they may need the help of a woman who claims to be the Devil.

Episode Eleven 'Nuts And Bolts'

An encounter with a mysterious doctor leads to twisted experiments and a night of terror.

Episode Twelve 'The Old Man And The Siege'

The Night Blogger uncovers the chilling mystery of a Marine's encounters with the enigmatic Old Man in black sunglasses during the Vietnam War.

Episode Thirteen 'Back From The Shadows Again'

The Night Blogger date with Sara turns into a night of terror and confusion.

Episode Fourteen 'The Rally'

A quiet evening with Sara prompts the Night Blogger to recount the chilling supernatural event that set him on the path to becoming a hunter of monsters.

Episode Fifteen 'Run In With The Devil'

Hoping to save Sara, the Night Blogger turns to the one woman who claims to be the Devil—and discovers that some legends are more dangerous than monsters.

Episode Sixteen 'Demon In Lace'

The Night Blogger's search for the mysterious Eternal Codex leads him into a world of forbidden knowledge, ancient secrets, and a book that may not want to be found.

THE NIGHT BLOGGER The Graveyard Game (and other cemetery plots) Episode Sixteen 'Demon In Lace'

2026-08-13T14:30:00.000-04:00

By Al Bruno III

March 24th: It was a slow day at the pawn shop. Sara was watching the cash register. Mrs. Vincenzo had given her a crash course in running the shop and kept her on a very short leash. Technically it was a one-person job, but in reality we spent most of our time behind the counter together, flirting, sharing Harlem Shake videos, and somehow getting paid for it.

I’d told her about my meeting with Ashley Fowler, albeit a much more positive, hallucination-free version of it. She was relieved to know we finally had a plan, even if she didn’t know about the various felonies I’d have to commit to pull it off.

For the moment, she was content dusting the counters and straightening the used DVD and VHS rack while I chatted with a few friends on the FEAR AND TRUTH message board. There was an entire subforum devoted to Lost Media. Buried inside it was another dedicated to disruptive legacy media knowledge.

Or, as H. P. Lovecraft called them—blasphemous tomes.

That was because one item on Ashley’s to-do list required me to find a copy of the Eternal Codex of Tovit -no small task. You aren’t going to find many seven-hundred-year-old books on Facebook Marketplace—especially not one that most reputable scholars insist doesn’t exist.

Which was fine. The moderator of the Lost Media subforum, Atwater—better known as GonePostal—had never been all that concerned with rules and regulations.

As it turned out, he’d dealt with the book a few years earlier… or at least its aftermath.

Here’s what he told me...

###

An email from Atwater aka GonePostal

...Foster, I should begin by telling you that everything you know is wrong. Don’t take that personally. You’re doing admirable work. You’ve stared down things both living and dead, and you’ve survived encounters that would have killed most people. That’s genuinely impressive. Unfortunately, the scale of your ignorance remains breathtaking. You insist on treating each new horror as though it were its own phenomenon. Gorgo? Mormo? The Thousand-Faced Moon? It’s all the same. There is only one darkness—so immense that every civilization has mistaken a different facet of it for the whole.

They give it different names, invent different histories, fight different holy wars, but they’re all describing the same thing. The Cross and the Pentagram are the same symbol viewed from opposite sides. There are a thousand words for fear, but only one thing being feared. Maybe you have blundered into the Mire of Nix but tell me Brian… can you even begin to understand what the mere existence of such a place implies about the constitution of ultimate infinity, the juxtaposition of dimensions, and the frightful position of our known cosmos of space and time in the unending chain of linked cosmos-atoms which makes up the immediate super-cosmos of curves, angles, and material and semi-material electronic organization?

No, of course you don’t. It’s the kind of thing that only someone like me, a high-ranking employee of the United States Postal Service, can truly comprehend.

You ask whether I know the Eternal Codex of Tovit? I’ve read portions of it. A doctoral candidate in philology procured a handwritten German translation of the Prayer of Alick several years ago.

I was fortunate enough to obtain a copy. Normally, documents of this nature circulate through encrypted forums or private couriers, making them difficult to intercept. Fortunately for me, this one passed through the United States Postal Service and was selected for routine transcription under standard departmental protocols before being forwarded to its intended recipient.

As for the history of the book itself? Its beginnings were humble enough: the Latin-inscribed peregrinations of a fourteenth-century alchemist named Tovit. It concerned itself primarily with blasphemous evocations and abhorrent dismissals. Athanatoi. Barghest. Domini Candelarum. Each received an entry that fit comfortably on a single page. There were even a handful of named daemons scattered throughout the text. But this was more than a book. The components of every incantation were bound into the vellum itself.

Can you comprehend what that means, Brian? Each page a ritual in totality. All any user had to do was burn the page itself. So simple. So dangerous. Tovit was both a genius and a madman. He could have brought sorcery to the masses a century and a half before Gutenberg printed his first Bible.

Predictably, when Tovit finished his masterwork, he was set upon by a pack of Greater Zoogs. While they did not kill him, whatever they made him into didn’t live very long. The forces of the Inquisition, those blood-soaked defenders of mediocrity, seized his papers and burned them.

Impossibly, the book resurfaced at a gathering of warlocks in 1318. It was in pristine condition. At the end of the convocation, the assembled warlocks decided to divide its pages among themselves. Twelve each took a handful back to their respective countries. The host of the gathering, Osmund Hutchmen, kept what remained.

Over the next half century, those warlocks used their pages to summon and cast out all manner of beings that make up the metaphysical gestalt you people insist on calling the Forces of Darkness.

But here’s the important thing—the mind-boggling thing. Osmund Hutchmen eventually realized he always knew when one of the pages had been consumed. Within a few months, it would simply return to the book. Regrown, the way a lizard regrows its tail.

Now that was your history lesson. Let me move on to the story of my encounter with the Eternal Codex of Tovit.

It was a glorious time for the Postal Service. Times of war usually are. It was also a glorious time to be a Postal Inspector. We’d only just begun dipping our toes into internet fraud and cybercrime, but my team spent most of its time chasing unpleasant missives and troubling artifacts making their way back from the Middle East thanks to foolish soldiers, shady contractors, and—of course—Hobby Lobby.

My story begins with a dead man named Cyrus Fingal. A man who forgot the four basic rules of life.

Forgive and forget.

If you can’t say something nice, keep your mouth shut.

Patience is a virtue.

Never hit Reply All.

His is a tawdry tale of eldritch horrors and local politics. A tale of a man who treated life as a series of entitlements.

He got into a good college, so naturally he expected a good job.

He made a lot of money, so naturally he expected women to flock to him.

He became a highly paid member of the local political machine, so naturally he expected the path to public office to be an easy one.

And who knows? He might have gotten exactly what he expected. If only he hadn’t forwarded those racist emails to everyone he knew—and a lot of people he didn’t.

As I said, never hit Reply All.

Such behavior might have been brushed off in some of the more, shall we say, bucolic parts of our nation. Indeed, in some places it might even get you elected. But not in Albany, New York.

The long and short of it is that Cyrus Fingal found himself out of a job faster than you could say “Rush Limbaugh.” But Cyrus Fingal was not one to vanish quietly from the public eye. In fact, for an entire news cycle, he was ubiquitous.

He said he had been hacked. He said he’d been set up. He said those heavily photoshopped images had been sent to him directly by the governor’s nephew. Then, finally, he blamed a cabal of homosexuals and minorities. As a member of both groups, I assure you we have much larger concerns than Cyrus Fingal.

So much for “if you can’t say something nice, keep your mouth shut.”

As you know, individuals who find themselves suddenly unemployed have many options. Updating their resumes. Applying for public benefits. Or moving back in with their parents.

Cyrus Fingal didn’t bother with any of that. Orthodoxy was not among his vices. Instead, he decided that exacting revenge upon those who had wronged him through demonic summoning was the next logical step.

Forgive and forget? No, not at all.

Unfortunately, my team did not realize that a single page from the Eternal Codex of Tovit had been sent to Parkwood Towers in Albany, New York, until it was too late. I don’t blame them. The shipper had hidden the page beneath the false bottom of a box containing bootleg Magic: The Gathering cards. By the time the disparate pieces of evidence came together, the situation was already well out of control.

But I am getting ahead of myself. Let me simply say that while we know where Cyrus procured the page, we never discovered how he obtained a saint’s bone and the tears of a jackal.

What I do know is that once he had gathered the requisite materials, he locked himself in his apartment and, after properly defiling himself, began the dark chant to summon Druaga the Possessor.

When the chant was completed, all Cyrus Fingal had to do was wait. He did wait—for nearly forty-five minutes—before deciding to begin the chant anew. Neighbors on either side of his apartment later reported that the chanting stopped and started repeatedly over the next twenty-four hours.

After twenty-four hours, Cyrus Fingal fell silent. “Fell” being the operative word, as he’d hanged himself using a crude noose fashioned from his draperies.

Things might have gone differently had he read that fateful page from the Codex more carefully.

Or perhaps if he’d remembered that patience is a virtue.

My condition leaves me loath to venture far from my office, but after the deaths of three local politicians, I felt it best to return to the field. While I may enjoy a certain degree of respect within the Postal Service bureaucracy, my predacious reputation has left me with little choice but to work alone.

You know my situation, Brian. You know what I endured. But the rumor-mongering hoi polloi occupying the lower rungs of the United States Postal Service are small-minded, judgmental, and, frankly, exhausting. Once you’ve been accused of cannibalism, there are no HR solutions. No sensitivity seminars. No mandatory inclusivity workshops.

Enough of that. Back to the case of Cyrus Fingal. Even before I got on the plane, I was doing research and making preparations. One must never go into the field unprepared, a lesson fate has endeavored to teach you on more than one occasion, Brian. Once I touched down at Albany International Airport, I checked in with the local law enforcement. Specifically, Detective Philip Bradshaw.

I know your opinion is clouded by your acrimonious relationship, but he is a good man with a clear, if single-track mind. He wasn’t assigned to the Cyrus Fingal case, but he was more than willing to help me sift through the mundane details while he was off the clock.

The death of Cyrus Fingal was the most straightforward aspect of the case. As I stated previously, he’d hanged himself—and done a sloppy job of it, to boot. The coroner estimated it might have taken him as long as twenty minutes to die.

But as always, the devil was in the details, and the subtext is frequently text.

So I made my way to Parkwood Towers, flashed my government credentials, and spent far longer than any civilized man should have explaining to the pimple-faced, slack-jawed wage slave manning the security desk that, yes, a Postal Inspector is essentially a policeman for the mail.

I weep for the future. We all should.

I instructed the so-called security guard to remain at his post and hand over a passkey so I could let myself into Apartment 229.

The décor of Cyrus Fingal’s apartment was as generic as they come, but only on the surface. What an untrained observer might have dismissed as kitschy, out-of-season Halloween decorations and unpleasant-looking antiques, I recognized for what they truly were. Nor was I surprised to discover the absence of a television. In its place stood an impressive collection of books. One cannot serve two masters, and it was obvious that Cyrus Fingal was far more interested in plumbing the preternatural than keeping up with the Kardashians.

In the center of the dining room table sat a punch bowl full of ashes. Doubtless the page from the Codex. Doubtless it had been put to use. Thankfully, the local authorities had overlooked it, leaving me free to pour the ashes into the evidence bag I carried. I found myself wondering whether the ashes would vanish as the page reconstituted itself. It was a disconcerting thought.

Equally disconcerting was the data regarding the murders of the three local politicians I mentioned earlier. All of them had been strangled. All of them were found slathered with traces of human bile and strands of animal protein fibers.

I spent the next hour exploring the apartment, searching for genuine arcane artifacts hidden among the dime-store statues of Baphomet and mass-produced Tarot cards. I checked behind every solid object for a hidden recess that might conceal something of real value. But it appeared that the page was Cyrus Fingal’s first brush with a truly otherworldly object. I did, however, uncover a single scrap of notepaper that proved highly illuminating. I pocketed it.

Then I sat upon his couch and considered the scene. I examined the living room again and again until I finally realized what was missing. I left the apartment, conscientiously locking the door behind me, and knocked on the door of Apartment 231. Cyrus’s neighbor—the one who had reported the marathon of chanting.

I knocked on the door of Apartment 231 and was greeted by the now familiar face of Blake C Rivers. “Inspector Atwater,” he said. “I didn’t think I’d see you again.”

“I need to resolve a few inconsistencies.” I shouldered past him into the apartment. “I need a little more of your time.”

An annoyed look crossed his features, but he closed the door behind us and followed me into the living room. “I’m not sure how I can help.”

There was a slight sneer on his face when he spoke next. “I didn’t realize being a postal inspector was such serious business.”

“Deadly serious,” I said, my smile well rehearsed.

On one wall, there was a reproduction of Van Gogh’s Portrait of Dr. Gachet. A nice choice. Blake C Rivers said, “I don’t think I can tell you much more. I started to smell something foul. I knocked on his door. It was unlocked, so I went in and found him hanging there. He’d tied the drapes to a ceiling fan. I pulled him down, but he’d been dead for days.”

“Are you sure you didn’t see anything out of the ordinary while you were there?” I asked. “Something that didn’t quite seem right?” I crossed the room over to the sliding glass door that led to the balcony.

“No. Nothing.”

The sliding door was unlocked. I turned my attention back to him. “Did you see his enemies list?”

“Enemies list?”

I pulled out the piece of paper I had found and handed it to him. “Before the end," I said, “he wrote down the names of everyone he believed had wronged him.”

He didn’t bother to read it. He didn’t even give it a cursory glance. “Am I on here?”

“Do you think you should be?”

I went on to explain to Blake that a good portion of that enemies list had died recently. “It’s really quite bizarre,” I concluded.

“I don’t see what that has to do with me. I barely knew the guy.”

“True,” I said, raising a finger. "But you were the one who found the body, “and the police report also stated that some things were missing from the apartment.

As expected, that angered him. “I think you should leave.”

“Understandable, but first I’d like to read you the list of stolen items."

“Look, asshole, I’m not going to…”

“One laptop. One iPhone. A complete collection of Radiohead’s discography. And the very set of draperies Cyrus Fingal used to kill himself.” I folded my arms. "Quite the eclectic mix.”

“The drapes?” Confusion flickered across his face, followed by the slightest twitch of fear. I didn’t steal his drapes.”

“Then perhaps, his drapes stole you.” I paused, watching numerous emotions parade across his face like a vain teenager trying on outfits for a Saturday night. I let the pause linger. “ Come on,” I said, “This little charade is over, and we both know it.”

There was a wet, gurgling sound. Blake Rivers’ mouth cracked wide open, and his eyes rolled back until only the whites remained. Curiously, the rest of him remained almost perfectly still. Save for a faint tremor passing through his frame, he might have been mistaken for a statue. His torso convulsed once. Then again. And then a tendril of yellow fabric wormed its way from between his gaping lips. It was slick with bile. Some parts were twisted and knotted. Other parts were frayed. Each loose thread made skittering motions in the air like the legs of an upended millipede. It was a parasite. A parasite made from fabric and a curse. It seemed unlikely that either Cyrus Fingal or Druaga had anticipated such an arrangement. Parasites, after all, have a vested interest in the continued health of their hosts.

I reached into my other jacket pocket and pulled out a flask. The top popped open easily. “Hear me, Druaga,” I said. “The supplicant is dead. You have no purpose on this mortal plane.”

Blake C Rivers toppled over. His face had turned purple, and he was convulsing. I liberally splashed the contents of the flask over the unclean spirit and its host. Then I muttered the exorcism rite I had long ago committed to memory.

Regrettably, the entity proved unpersuaded. The only response I got was a scream of outrage.

Then the scream was replaced by a wet sound. A tearing sound. The entire length of the drapery tore itself free of Blake Rivers’ body. Long, ugly bits of the man’s digestive system were dragged out along with it. It would have been an agonizing death, but by then Blake C. Rivers had been dead for quite some time.

The creature darted cobra-like toward me.

I had to throw myself across the dining room table to escape. I gave the holy water and the exorcism rite one final attempt. The creature reacted only with renewed aggression. I tried to throw myself back the other way over the dining room table, but my most agile years were far behind me.

One end wrapped my throat. It reeked of intestinal juices and brimstone. I kicked and pulled, but it held me fast. I tried to find some kind of hold on its bile-slickened body, but could not.

When I gasped for air, the creature immediately slid upward, making for my face. I knew then what it intended. It was going to force itself down my esophagus and into my stomach.

My dignity finally abandoned me. I began caterwauling for help—for anyone who might hear me. The effort was short-lived. The creature dove in.

It didn’t get all the way down my gullet, but it got deep enough that even now my palate is forever damaged. Miraculously, in that moment of near-certain doom, my desperate clawing fingers found purchase in the moist, tattered fabric.

Once I had a grip on the creature, I somehow found the strength to yank it away and hurl it across the room. It smacked wetly against the wall. Then I ran. I stumbled onto the balcony and slammed the sliding-glass door shut just as the creature righted itself and lunged. It smacked against the sliding-glass door with a satisfying sound.

Thankfully, Druaga, Thrall of Mormo, possessed an even smaller reserve of patience than the man who had summoned him and gave up after ten minutes of trying to get through the sliding-glass door I was desperately holding closed.

I suspect the fact that I was not among those on its hit list also contributed to my survival. After one final thump on the door, it slithered back into Blake C Rivers’ body. After a brief period of convulsing, Blake C. Rivers sat up, got to his feet, and walked toward the sliding-glass door. I must admit that, despite being two stories above a concrete walkway, I was more than prepared to throw myself from the balcony. The creature wearing Blake C Rivers' body merely paused to lock the door before leaving the apartment and disappearing, never to be seen again.

Brian, I have little doubt this thrilling missive has left you with more questions than answers. That is, of course, to be expected. How did I get off that balcony? I called Detective Bradshaw, of course. Why didn’t my exorcism work? There is no easy answer there, but perhaps Father Vincent of St. Casimir’s Church lacks either the skill or the faith to truly bless water. Alternatively, perhaps my own skill at performing exorcism rites has diminished since the career-ruining incident in Centralia, Pennsylvania.

As for the entity itself, while I am sure you have noted parallels between it and the Vorvolaka that upended your life in 2009, I can only tell you there appears to be no meaningful correlation between the two cases.

But what of Druaga, Thrall of Mormo, and Cyrus Fingal? Perhaps Druaga cannot leave this plane of existence until it has completed Cyrus Fingal’s bidding, and as I may have noted earlier, his enemies list was extensive; it ranged from his prom date to actor David Carradine.

Neither I nor the United States Postal Inspection Service would have the displeasure of encountering Druaga again. I did, however, keep tabs on Cyrus Fingal’s enemies list. A surprising number of those individuals suffered premature or otherwise unpleasant deaths, and asphyxiation proved to be a ubiquitous—if not universal—theme among them.

I do sometimes wonder if, despite the various governmental oaths I have taken, I should reach out to the individuals that have not fallen prey to this situation, but what would I say?

Beware of individuals with the shambling gait like something from a cheap zombie film?

Get in the habit of carrying around holy water with you.

Or, if I may indulge in a lamentably sophomoric turn of phrase-

Be aware of every room you enter. Examine the décor carefully, especially if the drapes clash with the rug. It might be curtains for you.

###

...when the story finally ended, my mind drifted back to the reality of the pawn shop. Of the 80’s classic radio drifting from the overhead speakers. Of the high school kids looking greedily at the case full of used video games. Of Sara negotiating over the price of a rock tumbler with a man who seemed to want to be anywhere but here, of the afternoon sun doing its best to shine through the front windows crowded with merchandise and signage. Despite the completeness of Atwater’s narrative I still had one lingering question.

HOW THE HELL WAS THIS STORY GOING TO HELP ME FIND THE DAMN BOOK?

And that is what I typed for my reply—all caps and everything.

Atwater must have either realized he had been so busy talking about himself that he'd forgotten the reason I'd asked him for help, or he simply remembered what I'd actually wanted. He responded to my email with an explanation that six months earlier a friend working in Customs had flagged a shipping crate going from an estate sale in Prague to a mobile home park in Bridgeville, Delaware. The crate turned out to be full of old books, fossils, wax cylinders, and—of all things—dirt. Atwater explained that while it might be perfectly legal to ship fossils of Devonian arthropods, Mamluk astrolabes, and ancient tomes, heaven forbid you try to mail some dirt from Timbuktu to Las Vegas.

The dirt had to stay behind but the other stuff? Including a book that matches every known description of the Eternal Codex of Tovit? Those got sent along to an address in Bayard Estates.

Now that I had the address my next question was how was I going to get the book from Delaware to here. I needed to think of something and think about it fast before something else went wrong.

There was a crash and a clatter, the sound of a formerly mint condition rock tumbler falling to the floor. Sara made a pained sound and practically ran to my side. No strike that, she stood behind me.

I looked up to see a well-dressed, well-kempt couple entering the Pawn Shop with an expression usually reserved for vegetarians entering a slaughterhouse. When the man spoke his voice was refined and cold, “We’ve spent a long time looking for you.”

“Me?” I said. When in doubt, play dumb.

Now it was the mink-coated woman to say something, “Are you the freak that likes to take advantage of mentally unwell people?”

“Me?” I said again. More dumb.

The man was at the counter now, actually trying to reach past me and grab her. I swatted him away with more force than I expected. He made a pained and angry sound. The woman fumbled in her pocket and pulled out a bedazzled container of mace.

She sprayed and I dropped to my knees.

“Mom! Dad!” Sara shouted, “Stop it!”

Of course. If my eyes hadn’t been on fire I would have rolled them.

THE NIGHT BLOGGER BLOGS ON!

2026-08-06T16:31:00.000-04:00

My name is Brian Foster and some people call me The Night Blogger. .."

Episode One 'The Graveyard Game'

Join The Night Blogger as he unravels the true story behind 'The Graveyard Game' in a spine-tingling tale of possession and the supernatural

Episode Two 'Whispers of the Red Night'

Unearthing the past could cost the Night Blogger more than his life as he uncovers the truth behind a string of gruesome murders.

Episode Three 'A Firesign Variation'

The Night Blogger investigates Albany's ghost bus, and it could be his final destination.

Episode Four 'Shadow Of The Zombie'

A bizarre case involving meth and fantasy video games leads the Night Blogger into the deadly reality of murder and magic.

Episode Five 'Digging In The Dirt'

The Night Blogger discovers the Graveyard Game isn't over, and a secret awaits Sara Bishop in Pinewood Cemetery.

Episode Six 'Direct Market Thing'

An undercover investigation into a multi-level marketing scheme uncovers chilling truths behind recent disappearances.

Episode Seven 'The Owls And The Lizards And The Big Broke Moon'

Unexpected visitors to Vincenzo’s pawnshop interrupt the Night Blogger's investigation and lead to a surprising declaration.

Episode Eight 'Dare To Grin'

The Night Blogger delves into the mind of a serial killer.

Episode Nine 'A Trace Of Arson'

The Night Blogger investigates a series of spontaneous human combustions.

Episode Ten 'The Crimson Chimes'

The Night Blogger and his friends delve deeper into the secrets of Gorgo, Luna, and the Thousand-Faced Moon, only to realize they may need the help of a woman who claims to be the Devil.

Episode Eleven 'Nuts And Bolts'

An encounter with a mysterious doctor leads to twisted experiments and a night of terror.

Episode Twelve 'The Old Man And The Siege'

The Night Blogger uncovers the chilling mystery of a Marine's encounters with the enigmatic Old Man in black sunglasses during the Vietnam War.

Episode Thirteen 'Back From The Shadows Again'

The Night Blogger date with Sara turns into a night of terror and confusion.

Episode Fourteen 'The Rally'

A quiet evening with Sara prompts the Night Blogger to recount the chilling supernatural event that set him on the path to becoming a hunter of monsters.

Episode Fifteen 'Run In With The Devil'

Hoping to save Sara, the Night Blogger turns to the one woman who claims to be the Devil—and discovers that some legends are more dangerous than monsters.

THE NIGHT BLOGGER The Graveyard Game (and other cemetery plots) Episode Fifteen 'Run In With The Devil'

2026-08-05T11:09:37.764-04:00

By Al Bruno III

March 20th: I tried and I tried and I tried to find a way to meet up with Ashley Fowler, but I couldn't get my foot in the door. When local blogger Brian Foster asked for a chance to interview her for his blog, her staff refused. When college student "Nathaniel Blades" asked for a chance to talk to her for his thesis, he was sent a copy of her autobiography, *Statements That Soothed Me Then*. And as for what happened when I tried to pose as a kid from the Make-A-Wish Foundation? The less said about that, the better.

So you can imagine my surprise when I started complaining about it while Cousin Roy and I were knocking back a few at Blue Valentines, local dive bar, and he said, "Ashley Fowler? I know her."

At first, I chuckled, absolutely sure the fourth Corona was giving me auditory hallucinations.

"What?"

"Ashley Fowler. I know her."

"No, you don't."

"Yeah, I do." Cousin Roy raised a hand and called the bartender over for another round, but she pointedly ignored him.

"Ashley Fowler?" I said again. "The local millionaire, car wash magnate, and acquitted murderer?"

"That's the one."

He whistled.

The bartender still ignored him.

"Red hair? Beauty mark? Says she's the Devil?"

Cousin Roy's voice rang with exasperation. Whether it was directed at me or the bartender, I had no idea.

"I'm in her biography."

There was no way for me to confirm what he was saying. Statements That Soothed Me Then by Ashley Fowler was sitting on my kitchen table in mint, unread condition.

"How?" I asked, suddenly a little worried.

Cousin Roy always turned up his nose and rolled his eyes at my stories of the supernatural. He didn't believe in gods or monsters. Of course, he didn't believe in evolution, either.

His voice was matter-of-fact.

"We were at camp together. We totally banged."

I took a long time to consider that statement. Then I called to the bartender and was immediately given a Corona. I handed it to him.

"Yeah," he said with a rueful smile, shaking his head. "We're Facebook friends. We don't talk much, but she always sends me a hello on the anniversary of the big night."

"Wow."

Just wow.

I sat drinking quietly. This was my only chance to save Sara, or at least the only chance on my radar. There had been no incidents of sleepwalking or clown sightings, but how long could our luck hold out?

Originally, I wanted to save her because it was the right thing to do.

But now?

Now?

Well, let's be honest.

I was falling in love.

"Can you get me in touch with her?" I asked.

"I dunno." He pounded his fist on the bar, startling the patrons near us. "Can you get this bartender to bring me another fucking beer?"

"Yeah," I said. "But maybe you wouldn't have this problem if you hadn't offered to pay her thirty bucks just to smell her feet..."

###

…the Chop House of the Rising Sun was on the border between Schenectady and Albany. A decade earlier, it had been one of the largest toy stores in the tri-state area. Before that, it had been one of the few houses left on Central Avenue. It was a ranch house with a huge basement that had once held overstock action figures and off-brand bicycles. Now it was occupied by freezers, coolers, and stressed-out staff hiding from the customers for a few peaceful minutes.

All in all, it was a nice little place, with atmospheric lighting, soft instrumental music, and a friendly staff—at least the ones who weren't hiding in the basement, anyway. I'd never actually eaten there. I'd almost gone once, but the menu prices posted on the door—and the dress code—had been enough to send me elsewhere. Now? Now I was in my best suit, freshly ironed by Sara and sporting a thick wad of bills thanks to the kindness of Mrs. Vincenzo.

Yes, I know. Ashley Fowler invited me here, so technically they should've been paying. But millionaires don't become millionaires by paying for dinner. They become millionaires by convincing everyone else it's their turn.

Speaking of Ashley Fowler, she was already waiting for me in the private dining room normally reserved for large parties and corporate events.

"Brian Foster!" She stood and shook my hand. "Come on, have a seat. I ordered already. A sushi platter and warm sake. You can never go wrong with sushi and warm sake."

"Thanks."

I made my way to the opposite end of the long boardroom table and took a seat. It seemed absurd that a room big enough for twenty executives had been reserved for just the two of us.

"I like your hat," she said with a grin.

I looked up, almost forgetting I was wearing my straw pork-pie. I admit, for some reason I always felt a little braver with a hat on.

"Thanks." Plus, branding is everything these days.

“It’s new, isn’t it?”

"Uhm... errr," I said.

Less than a minute into our meeting and she already had me on the defensive. I set my hat on the table, shifted in my chair, and hoped she didn't notice the iPhone tucked into my jacket pocket, recording the conversation. Sneaky and unethical? Absolutely. But if Ashley Fowler really did turn out to be the Devil—which she wouldn't—it'd be one hell of a scoop.

"I was so excited when Roy told me you wanted to see me."

She popped a piece of sushi drowning in wasabi into her mouth before continuing.

"I've been following your work for some time."

“Really?” I narrowed my eyes.

“You are the talk of the town… in some circles.”

Yeah, circles of Hell. Very clever.

“I can’t imagine he told you what I’m here for.”

“He said it was an interview for your blog,” she said. “But I assumed it was more than that. After all he and I didn’t part on the best of terms.”

Bittersweet memories of high school romance flashed through my mind, “I’m sorry to hear that but you were just kids.”

"Kids?"

She stared at me.

"We were both almost thirty."

“But he said-” So there I was, not even ten minutes into the conversation and completely floundering. I downed my cup of warm saki. It tasted soft and sweet and started to go to my head almost instantly. “-he said it was at camp.”

“A rehab camp. Adderall and sangria do not mix… well I mean they do mix but if you’re like me you might go around starting fires.”

She curled her perfectly manicured fingers into claws.

"Evil!" she growled with theatrical menace.

This might have been a charming conversation if she'd blinked even once during the entire exchange. I decided my sake cup was looking dangerously empty. "So... a rehab romance. Very post-modern."

“I don’t think a little anal counts as romance.”

Real spit takes are rarer than television would have you believe. I was happy to demonstrate one for her.

She leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table and her chin in her hands. “Now that you've composed yourself, why don't you tell me what you need?”

What choice did I have? She already seemed to know everything else, so I gave her the lowdown on everything that had happened since the Graveyard Game.

“You’ve lost your heart to a girl in danger. I love it! Clichés are the Devil’s shorthand.”

She popped another piece of sushi into her mouth. It was reddish, vaguely tentacled, and unlike anything else on the platter between us.

Then again, it was probably just sushi.

Probably.

Because if it wasn't, Ashley Fowler had the strangest tongue in recorded history.

“She played the Graveyard Game... I mean, I let her play it. Now there is something after her, something called the thousand faced moon.”

Ashley nodded as she refilled my saki cup, “"Gorgo. Mormo. Luna. And their pet witch. Three dying goddesses hiding out in the Mire of Nix, desperate for a reinvention. You know the place I think?”

"Yes."

My voice came out flatter than I'd intended. I remembered my fool's errand into the Mire of Nix with Osric Langhorne and Johnny Disko. I remembered who we lost. I remembered what we brought back. When I spoke again there was no hiding the desperation, “What do I do?”

“Gorgo for the gorgon, Mormo for Hecate, Luna for Lilith who birthed all the world’s monsters. That girl of yours is in a lot of trouble. Drink up now.”

I did drink up, mostly to be polite, “And there are these things chasing her, these clowns...”

“We’re in the state capitol Brian, we’re overrun with clowns.”

I asked again, “Then tell me how to save her.”

“Poor Brian, desperate to finally save someone. The real question is what are you willing to do?” She stood. I hadn't realized how tall she was until the horns curling up through her fire-red hair scraped softly across the ceiling.

For some reason I giggled, “You can’t be the Devil so you can’t have my soul.”

“You’re half right anyway,” she walked towards me and raked her long black fingernails across the tablecloth. Wherever her nail passed, the cloth blackened and smoldered. “But don’t worry, I don’t need those old hags getting underfoot. I want them gone just as much as you do.”

My tongue felt heavy in my mouth, but I kept my focus. I didn't care that the room seemed to be burning around us or that the remaining pieces of sushi had become squirming souls of the damned.

"Let me save her," I said.

Ashley looked bigger now, impossibly bigger, her skin glowing an angry red. Her voice was distorted and deep. “What else? You burn their temples, you defile her holiest of holies, you scatter her faithful.”

“But where...” I began, “But how...”

Before I could say anything else I collapsed, the last thing I saw was a cloven foot raised high above my head...

###

...I woke up hours later on the floor of the restaurant's private dining room. There was no fire. No screaming souls of the damned.

Both you and I know she had to have drugged my drink. That's obvious, isn't it? When I tried to listen to the playback of the conversation on my iPhone, I discovered that all my audio files had been replaced with Kajagoogoo’s greatest hits.

Thankfully, she'd left me something more useful than an existential crisis: a text message containing a four-item to-do list. Three addresses that belonged to Gorgo, Mormo, and Luna. The fourth was where I was supposed to find whatever I needed to undo them.

You know what else she left me?

The dinner check.

I fucking knew it.

THE NIGHT BLOGGER blogs on

2026-07-31T12:54:42.168-04:00

My name is Brian Foster and some people call me The Night Blogger. .."

Episode One 'The Graveyard Game'

Join The Night Blogger as he unravels the true story behind 'The Graveyard Game' in a spine-tingling tale of possession and the supernatural

Episode Two 'Whispers of the Red Night'

Unearthing the past could cost the Night Blogger more than his life as he uncovers the truth behind a string of gruesome murders.

Episode Three 'A Firesign Variation'

The Night Blogger investigates Albany's ghost bus and it could be his final destination.

Episode Four 'Shadow Of The Zombie'

Mixing meth and fantasy video games leads to the deadly reality of murder and magic.

Episode Five 'Digging In The Dirt'

The Night Blogger discovers the Graveyard Game isn't over, and a secret awaits Sara Bishop in Pinewood Cemetery.

Episode Six 'Direct Market Thing'

An undercover investigation into a multi-level marketing scheme uncovers chilling truths behind recent disappearances.

Episode Seven 'The Owls And The Lizards And The Big Broke Moon'

Unexpected visitors to Vincenzo’s pawnshop interrupt the Night Blogger's investigations and lead to a surprising declaration.

Episode Eight 'Dare To Grin'

The Night Blogger delves into the mind of a serial killer.

Episode Nine 'A Trace Of Arson'

The Night Blogger investigates a series of spontaneous human combustions.

Episode Ten 'The Crimson Chimes'

Brian and his friends delve deeper into the secrets of Gorgo, Luna, and the Thousand-Faced Moon, only to realize they may need the help of a woman who claims to be the Devil.

Episode Eleven 'Nuts And Bolts'

An encounter with a mysterious doctor leads to twisted experiments and a night of terror.

Episode Twelve 'The Old Man And The Siege'

The Night Blogger uncovers the chilling mystery of a Marine's encounters with the enigmatic Old Man in black sunglasses during the Vietnam War.

Episode Thirteen 'Back From The Shadows Again'

Brian and Sara's date turns into a night of terror and confusion.

Episode Fourteen 'The Rally'

A quiet evening with Sara prompts the Night Blogger to recount the chilling supernatural event that set him on the path to becoming a hunter of monsters.

THE NIGHT BLOGGER The Graveyard Game (and other cemetery plots) Episode Fourteen 'The Rally'

2026-07-30T13:28:56.928-04:00

By Al Bruno III

March 12th: I imagine the only person surprised that Sara and I ended up sleeping together was me. She knew it was going to happen. The members of the FEAR AND TRUTH message board knew it was going to happen. My boss and landlady, Mrs. Vincenzo, knew it was going to happen. Hell, I bet even you knew it was going to happen.

But honestly, I thought I might never have a girlfriend again. Sure, I had a college sweetheart, but when I came home and got caught up chasing shadows, we just drifted apart. There was no real breakup—we just kind of stopped being a thing. After that, I was too busy to do more than go on the occasional blind date, usually set up by Mrs. Vincenzo. I like to think my looks have a smoldering mediocrity, just enough to catch a lady's eye but not much more. Kind of like what you'd expect from a side character on a CW drama. The problem is, beyond movies and music, there's not much I can talk about in depth—unless people want to hear about vampire genus classifications and how to kill them. That's a mood killer, for sure.

But with Sara, there wasn't that kind of barrier. We were both a little haunted and a whole lot hunted.

The night things got serious in all the right ways started out normally. I worked an open-to-close shift at the pawnshop so my landlady and boss, Mrs. Vincenzo, could spend the day visiting estate sales to find antiques, cast-off electronics, and other potentially resellable bric-a-brac. Normally, she took along one of her fellow energetic geriatrics for company, but this time she decided to roust Sara out of bed and drag her along.

They didn't get back from their trip until just as I was closing up the store for the day. Mrs. Vincenzo was carrying a slightly singed Art Deco lamp and a supposedly collectible doll from the 1980s that looked like Charles Schulz had wandered into the uncanny valley.

Sara had a shopping bag and a sly smile.

After some pleasant conversation, Sara and I retreated to my semi-spacious apartment. Have I ever described it to you? It has a half bath, a cramped bedroom, and a living area that doubles as both kitchen and living room. It wasn’t much, but it was mine—and best of all, it was rent-free so long as I manned the pawn shop at least four days a week.

Sara and I had planned to have a quick dinner, but our plans were interrupted by a call from my cousin Roy. Roy may not believe in the supernatural, but he does seem to have the uncanny ability to know when I’ve ordered a pizza from his favorite place—Namira’s Authentic Italian Cuisine.

He kept himself busy watching my TV and stuffing his face. At the same time, Sara and I sat at the nearby dining table, quietly discussing the woman named Ashley Fowler. Ever since that bloody fracas at the mall, I’d been trying to get in touch with her. But like most people rich beyond the dreams of the avarice, she had a highly dangerous security detail and an even deadlier squad of executive assistants.

“Obviously,” I said, “I’m going to have to get creative.”

“How did you start?” Sara asked.

“Being creative?” I said.

“No…” she said. “With the weird stuff. Witches, zombies, and clowns.”

“Oh.” There was no disguising the pained look that crossed my face—the combination of anguish over the past and dread over the future. “Well, it’s a long story.”

“I’d love to hear it,” she said. “Besides, your cousin just ordered *Curbside Crusader* on PPV, and that movie is almost two hours.”

“Damn it, Roy! Mrs. Vincenzo pays the cable bill.”

Cousin Roy shrugged. “So what? She buys one less ugly lamp.”

“You’ve got the time,” Sara said again. “If you’re ready to tell the story, that is.”

The strains of a faux Danny Elfman score began to blare from my TV. I smiled at her and said, “There’s no one I’d rather tell the story to...”

###

...it was April 2009, and I was a nineteen-year-old college student living on campus, pursuing a double major in Journalism and early-onset alcoholism. My grandmother, Gail Foster, had been diagnosed with pancreatic adenocarcinoma the year before and had been living at my mom's house for six months. We all knew the inevitable was drawing closer.

That morning, my mom, Grace Foster, called to say Grandma was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed—almost like the woman she used to be. And that was heartbreaking. The doctors had long warned us about the rally—that eerie burst of energy some patients get just before the end. Mom hadn't explicitly asked me to come home, but I could hear it in the quiver of her voice. I felt guilty as hell for being so far away, but I knew pausing my education wouldn't change a damn thing.

It had hurt even more over the past week because the visiting hospice nurse had flaked out, stopping her visits entirely. Thank God for Mrs. Vincenzo, who stepped in and picked up the slack.

It was a two-and-a-half-hour drive from Woodridge to Albany. I left right after my last class, radio blasting, energy drink in the cupholder. I tried not to think about what I was driving toward, but of course I did—so much so that I missed my exit. Twice. Eventually, my battered Ford Escort found its way home. The driveway was full, so I parked on the street. Anyone who's visited an ailing relative knows a packed driveway is never a good sign.

Inside, I was greeted by two familiar faces.

First was Uncle Roy Foster—my grandmother's brother's son. Technically, that made him my first cousin once removed, but he'd always insisted on "Uncle," and honestly, he'd earned it. Despite the great scandal that had driven my grandmother from the Foster clan's Arizona home, he'd always been kind. He quietly helped her settle in upstate New York and showed up whenever she, my mom, or I were in a pinch.

I barely knew him before my teenage years, when we went to his second wedding. He was tall, gray-haired, with a construction worker's tan and a meticulous streak honed on decades of job sites. And speaking of things left behind—when his first wife walked out, she took the house and car and left him with custody of his sketchy son, Roy Junior.

"Hey, Uncle Roy," I said. "How was your flight?"

"Can't complain," he said, "except for your cousin trying to steal from the drink tray."

"Cousin Roy is here? That's great."

Actually, it wasn't. With any luck, this visit would end without any copper being stolen from our walls.

Then I turned to my Great Aunt Peg. She was Grandma's last surviving sister—sixty-five, plainly dressed, and fiery-eyed. If you were a younger member of the clan, you didn't call her Great Aunt Peg—or even Aunt Peg. It was Miss Peg or nothing. And if you worked in food service, you probably called her that bitch.

"Hello, Miss Peg." I flashed her my job-interview smile. "Thank you for coming all the way from Nevada."

"What choice did I have?" she said. "Matthew 25:35–36 obligates us to tend to the sick."

Miss Peg was over ten years younger than Grandma but looked about the same age, thanks to a misspent youth stretching into her thirties. The conservative Foster clan had chosen to overlook those wild years—selective memory or willful ignorance, either way, they never spoke of it. Maybe it was because she was now married to a churchgoing man, blessed with six kids (including two teenage twins), and cursed the rest of us with her transformation into someone determined to make sure no one ever had fun again.

When I thought of Miss Peg, I could hear my high school history teacher:

"The housewives of today are the fascists of tomorrow."

"How are things at college?" she asked.

Before I could answer, she added, "I hope you're keeping a clear head. Colleges are full of sluts and secular humanists."

"Sounds like I'm taking the wrong classes," I joked.

Uncle Roy laughed.

Miss Peg did not.

She asked, "Brian, have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Savior?"

"I like to think the big guy and I have an understanding," I said.

The glare she gave me was reserved for witches about to be burned at the stake.

"Salvation is not something to be taken lightly," she said.

I raised a hand in mock surrender.

"This is not a time for jokes," she snapped. "A woman is breathing her last breaths."

And didn't that phrasing punch me in the gut?

"Don't be so dramatic!" Uncle Roy said. "She was just chatting with Roy Junior ten minutes ago. Clear as a bell!"

Eager to change the subject, I asked, "Where is he?"

"He's in the backyard," Uncle Roy said, nodding toward Miss Peg. "Keeping her twins busy."

"Brian?" a voice called from the kitchen. "Brian, is that you?"

"Excuse me," I said. "I think I hear my mom calling."

Grace Foster was at the kitchen sink, setting up one of the extra saline bags the home hospice care left us for emergencies. I may be biased, but my mom was beautiful—short moonlight-colored hair, striking blue eyes like Grandma's. Right now, those eyes were not striking. They were on the verge of tears.

"Can you help me with this?" she asked. "The one from this afternoon is empty, and that stupid machine keeps beeping."

Tom Wynne, Mom's oldest and dearest friend, was mopping up the remains of a broken bag. Tall, dark-haired, with a gray mustache, he nodded warmly as I passed.

"I got it, Mom," I said, taking over. Mohawk Valley Home Health had crammed a five-hour home-care class into two, just to cover their liability.

I fussed for a few minutes, feeling like I was trying to catheterize a juice box, but finally got it right.

"See?" I held up the bag. "Under control."

Mom sighed and headed out to make use of it.

"Great job!" Tom clapped my shoulder. "You could be a doctor if you wanted."

"Well, I don't like blood, and I want my student debt to stay under five figures, so nope."

We laughed. His laugh sounded so much like mine.

Did I mention that, like Grandma, Mom never married? That she worked as a bookkeeper for Tom's bike shop? That Tom had been married over twenty-five years to the same woman? And that I never knew my father?

Tom had been a semi-regular fixture in my life. As a kid, I thought he was just Mom's cool friend. In adolescence, I began to suspect otherwise. Mom never confirmed it, preferring to hint that I was the result of a one-night stand with a visiting rock star. Unfortunately, the only band to pass through Albany around the time of my conception was Mike + The Mechanics, and I didn't look remotely like any of them.

"I wish you had gone to school locally," Tom said. "We could really use you at the shop."

"I appreciate it, but I had to leave, at least for a while," I said.

"I get that," he smiled ruefully.

"By the way," I asked, "what happened to the nurse guy? Stuart?"

"He died. Pulmonary embolism. Sudden," Tom said, serious. "Mrs. Vincenzo found out—she knows his mother."

"Wow. Maybe you should go to journalism school instead," I said.

"Thanks."

Awkward silence.

We stared at our shoes.

I almost asked about Mike + The Mechanics, but Mom chose that moment to call.

"Brian! Someone wants to see you!"

Tom smiled and clapped me on the shoulder.

"Better not keep her waiting."

I nodded and excused myself, making my way down the hall to what had once been my mother's office, now converted into the room where Grandma Gail would spend the last days of her life. Her final resting place before her final resting place.

The last time I was home, she had been frail, slipping away before our eyes. But the woman I saw now was a stark contrast to that memory. She was sitting up in bed, her eyes bright, her hair freshly dry-shampooed. There was a liveliness to her, a near-electric energy that made it hard to believe she was dying at all.

The moment she saw me, her face lit up. She practically bounced in bed, arms wide for a hug.

"Sweetie-pie!"

"Hey, look at you!" I said, trying to deliver a hug that was both hearty and gentle. How hard do you hug a dying woman?

I needn't have worried. Grandma Gail's grip was as firm as a salesman's handshake.

"What are you doing home?" she asked.

"Brian missed you," my mom answered.

"I missed him too."

Grandma Gail finally released the hug but took my face in her warm hands.

"But you should have stayed at college."

She stared into my eyes as she spoke.

"You have a life to live."

"And so do you," I said, then immediately winced inside.

Thankfully, Grandma and Mom didn't seem to notice, so we all settled into the kind of long and rambling conversation that only families can have, where nostalgia becomes a private mythology.

A million college professors will study The Iliad and The Odyssey, but only the Foster family can tell the tale of the day little Brian came upon a pile of dead saplings and decided to plant them in the front yard and wait for a miracle.

We talked about family trips and local tragedies.

Mom prompted me to talk about college, so I shared some edited highlights.

For instance, when I told her and Grandma about my kinda sorta girlfriend Jenny, I did not mention that she had kinda sorta decided to see other people.

When I talked about my study partners, I did not mention that my pals and I spent most weekends studying for fraternity mixers.

When I bragged about the award my story for the campus newspaper had earned, I did not tell them the article was called Tracking Boots and Fuzzy Snoots and detailed the small-scale riot that erupted when a Cryptid Hunters Conference and a Furry Convention were booked at the same convention center on the same weekend.

Eventually, Miss Peg's twins entered the room.

A pair of gangly thirteen-year-old boys hovered uncertainly in the doorway, all elbows, oversized sneakers, and painfully forced solemn expressions. In any other situation, I would have told them they'd be a shoo-in to win a costume contest if they dressed as the twins from The Shining. Grandma would have loved that. Miss Peg... not so much. And suggesting her boys dress as little girls? Well, let's just say I'd have been the one dying in that room.

I'll tell you what did die in that room: conversation.

No surprise there. After all, what thirteen-year-old wants to sit at the bedside of a dying, mostly estranged relative? No, they were there because they hoped their perfunctory display of concern would be pleasing to the Lord and, more importantly, Miss Peg.

Couple that with the fact that they were homeschooled and shielded from just about every aspect of pop culture made after 1977, and conversation never really had a chance. It sputtered and meandered through awkward questions and uncomfortable silences until we finally managed to land on the subject of sports. Even that got weird when they started spouting conspiracy theories about why their home team, the Las Vegas Wranglers, were so maligned.

Is it any wonder, then, that we were all slightly relieved when Miss Peg came to collect them and make her goodbyes for the night? She left us with no warm farewell, just a request for directions to the nearest Applebee's and a sharp reminder to beg merciful Jesus for forgiveness or face perdition.

Once they were gone, Grandma Gail started laughing and wondered what might have happened if she'd brought up Miss Peg's unfortunate tattoo in an even more unfortunate location.

I told her I didn't want our family to be responsible for two more lifetimes of therapy.

That set all of us off.

Tom Wynne came in then to ask what we were laughing about.

I said, "Stigmata."

And we were laughing again. Grandma could barely catch her breath.

When our sides finally stopped hurting, Tom said his goodbyes, hugging Grandma, shaking my hand, and making long, lingering eye contact with my mom.

I mean long, lingering eye contact.

Mike + The Mechanics.

Yeah, right.

The afternoon faded into evening.

Cousin Roy and Uncle Roy came in to say they were heading back to their hotel.

Cousin Roy started to make a morbid joke, but his dad cut him off. He said he needed to speak to Gail alone, so we all retreated and closed the door.

My mom and I stood in the hallway outside my room and spoke quietly.

"How long does a rally last?" I asked.

Mom leaned against the wall, her shoulders sagging.

"Who knows? It's... it's wonderful and scary all at once."

"Waiting for the other shoe to drop."

"Brian..."

She covered her face.

"I know this is awful, but I want it to be over."

She started to cry.

I leaned in and held her.

It didn't take long before I was crying too.

Sometime during our tearfest, Uncle Roy and Roy Jr. had let themselves out.

I'll never know what Uncle Roy's private conversation with Grandma was about, but what I do know is that, as he was leaving, Cousin Roy raided our fridge and filled the pockets of his jacket with as many cans of beer as he could.

A little after sunset, Mrs. Vincenzo arrived with foil-wrapped food and a Parcheesi set. There was no way I was going to turn down Mrs. Vincenzo's homemade lasagna, but I politely declined the board game.

Instead, I puttered around the kitchen while she and my mom rolled dice and made small talk. I loaded the dishwasher and refilled the ice cube trays. Then I checked over the inventory of medical supplies that seemed to have taken over all the available counter space.

When that was done, I excused myself to my room, where I unpacked my clothes and textbooks.

Then I paused to take in my surroundings.

This had been my room for most of my childhood and all of my adolescence, where I had gone from Fisher-Price to third base. I realized, with a twinge of sadness, that after a little less than a year away, it didn't feel like home anymore. Speaking of things that didn't feel like home, I had homework to do, but after staring blankly at my textbook for fifteen minutes, I realized I was exhausted.

I could worry more about Paul Y. Anderson in the morning. I stretched out on the bed, thought for a moment about how it was just a little too small now, and then fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

Hours later, I woke up feeling disoriented. After all, I was waking up in a familiar place, just not the familiar place I'd expected to wake up in, and with a full bladder. I got to my feet and, after a moment of standing in the darkness to orient myself, shuffled across the hall to the bathroom.

Whether it was grogginess, consideration for my sleeping family, or the fact that nineteen-year-old college students are only marginally civilized, I neither flushed nor washed my hands.

Sometimes I wonder if things would have gone differently had I switched on the lights or made a little noise. If choosing to skulk through the shadows over something so mundane somehow marked me for life.

I left the bathroom and was halfway up the two steps leading back to my room when I heard... something.

Years later, armed with a much better thesaurus, I'd describe the sound as an insectile chittering. Back then, all I knew was that whatever I'd heard sounded wrong.

And dangerous.

And it was coming from Grandma's room.

Again, a different person would have shouted, "Who's there?" and turned on the hall lights, but me? I crept toward her room as quietly as my bare feet would carry me. The door stood open a crack, but that was enough for me to see something... and for something to see me.

The memory of what I saw has always existed in my mind as a triptych: three separate images frozen in time.

The First: the curtains were open, and the window was half-open. Moonlight filtered in, revealing the hospital bed and IV stand that consumed most of the available space. In one corner sat the battered file cabinet that was almost as old as I was. It had once held my mother's real estate paperwork. Now it was filled with morphine, IV supplies, disposable bedpans, and a thousand little necessities that came with watching someone die.

The Second: Grandma lay still, utterly still, eyes wide, mouth gaping, her chest motionless. In those days, death was still an unpleasant stranger in my life, not the constant companion it would later become. Even so, I knew a dead person when I saw one. There was a subtle deflation to the way her flesh hung on her body. She had become inanimate. There was no other way to describe it.

The Third: I thought it was an animal, some kind of snake slowly moving through the open window. But only the window was open, not the screen. And it didn't slither or crawl; it wafted, spilling purposefully into the room. I wondered if it might be smoke. Then the moonlight caught it. Smoke isn't red, and it doesn't move with purpose. It coiled. It flowed. It rose over Grandma like a predator preparing to strike. It arced upward before slipping into her open mouth.

I sobbed. A tiny noise. No one heard. Thank God.

Grandma's eyes fluttered, then closed. A shiver ran through her body. She began breathing deeply and steadily. She shifted under the blankets and made a happy little sound that was disturbingly close to a purr.

There are moments when your understanding of the world simply ceases to function. This was one of them.

Then, just a few hours later, as the sun came up, it happened again. I was lying awake beneath the covers when my mom burst into my room to tell me Uncle Roy had died in his sleep...

###

...I grew quiet then, my brow furrowing while Cousin Roy cheered on the cinematic adventures of a superhero who drove a taxicab. Sara looked to him and back to me. “Did that really -” then she caught herself, “Of course it did.”

“It’s Ok. I wouldn’t believe it either,” I shrugged. “If I didn’t have to.”

“What was it?” She asked.

The troubled frown on my face deepened. “The Vorvolaka.”

“Vorvolaka?”

“Think half-vampire, half-pathogen.”

“What happened next?”

It wasn't that I was afraid to tell my story. My life is an open blog. But part of me didn't want to tell it to Sara because it wasn't a story with a fairy-tale ending. I'm no psychiatrist, but by then I knew she didn't need another reminder that the good guys don't win all that much. “I’ll tell you later,” I said, “Just not right now.”

There was a long pause then, just Sara and me making eye contact while Cousin Roy cheered on a man in spandex as he saved a little old lady from monsters in a rocket-powered Zamboni. Say what you want about Cousin Roy, but he knows what he likes.

Suddenly, Sara’s voice and face brightened; she stood and said, “I guess it’s time for your present.”

“Present?” I asked.

She got up and went to the shopping bag that had been sitting in the corner. “For you,” she said.

“For me?” I said.

“Open it!”

And open it I did, revealing a hatbox which, naturally, had a hat in it.

“I got you a new straw fedora.” She was practically preening.

Actually, dear reader, what she had gotten me was a straw pork pie hat. Now, unless you lived through the Great Depression, you might not see the difference, but trust me, there is one. You see, a fedora has a pinched front and center-creased top with a wide brim that can be snapped down or up. A pork pie hat, on the other hand, has a flat, circular top with a crease around the edge—often called a "telescopic" crown. The brim is shorter and turns up slightly, giving it a more compact and relaxed feel.

Or to simplify it further: my old 1930s hat was a Humphrey Bogart; what she got me was a Thelonious Monk.

Not exactly my style, but since I didn’t have a hat at all, who was I to complain? Besides, Sara’s face lit up the moment I put it on and struck a pose—so how could I say no?

She got up and hugged me. I kissed her on the cheek.

That was it. The fuse was lit.

Sara kissed me on the mouth. I pulled her close. We both started breathing heavily as we kissed harder. She let out an excited squeal as we fell back against the dining room table.

I gasped her name.

And then Cousin Roy said, “Aw yeah.”

We both turned to look at him, watching us from my couch, the CGI superhero mayhem on the TV forgotten.

I cleared my throat.

Sara blushed.

“Oh, don’t mind me,” Cousin Roy said with a wide grin. “I just was wondering when you two would get down to it.”

“Get down to it?” I repeated, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah.” He nodded. “Get down to it.”

“Down to it?” Sara murmured, still warm against me. “Was that your plan?”

“My plan?” I said. “I thought it was your plan.”

“I didn’t have a plan.”

“You bought me a hat,” I pointed out. “That sounds like a plan to me.”

Roy let out an exaggerated sigh as he got up off the couch and grabbed his coat. “You’re supposed to get around to it, and then you’re supposed to start arguing.”

When he slammed the door, Sara and I burst into laughter.

Then we got around to it.

Boy, did we ever.

Whatever Happened To Al Bruno III?

2026-01-10T09:05:00.005-05:00

First off, I want to tell you I’m alright and doing fine. My wife Sherri and I are happy, and my wonderful daughter has come back to live with us for a while. There is nothing that tests the bonds of a family quite like three people sharing a single bathroom.

You may be wondering: where are the stories? Where is the podcast?

Truth be told, I’ve found myself in a place where I’m spending less time in my office writing stories and more time going out—listening to live music, doing karaoke, and having adventures instead of writing about them.

I admit I sometimes miss telling tales for the Night Blogger and random Booger Monsters From Outer Space, but I’m 58 years old now and I’ve been obsessively spinning stories for four decades. That’s a long time to live in your head.

I think I’m just in a different season of my life for now—but I can’t imagine I won’t be back someday.

In the meantime, I’ll keep this page up for you to enjoy. The podcast will probably be going dormant soon, but again, I can’t imagine I won’t be getting back into the game eventually.

Your reading and comments have gotten me through some dark days, and for that I am deeply grateful to all of you.

A Love Poem For My Wife

2026-01-10T08:41:00.004-05:00

BRAD'S ORACLES: Chapter Four

2025-06-05T06:35:00.013-04:00

← Back to Chapter Two

Al Bruno III

"And then what?"

Lake Wales High School was shaped like an E; the top and bottom ends of the E were the auditorium and the gymnasium, and the middle was the cafeteria.

"And then I ran," Thelma explained. An entire weekend had passed since her bizarre encounter with Brad Waterman, and those 48 hours had helped diminish the worst memories. Those girls she had met had left her feeling uneasy and curious. And those men she had glimpsed? Those faces she had seen? It must have been a trick of the light, Thelma thought.

"You ran?" Samantha Reid asked. She was a heavy girl with frosted blonde hair and an easy smile, "Just when it was getting good."

A short boy with dark eyes and too-long hair nodded, "I bike by that house every day while I'm doing my paper route."

"Maybe you should see if they want a subscription Peanut," Samantha said.

"Maybe I'm afraid to," Peanut's real name was Steve Cross, but he had always been shorter than the other kids, and since the seventh grade, everyone from teachers to students had taken to calling him Peanut. "Although the tips might be memorable."

The three of them had been sitting together at lunch since last spring after the popular girls' catty remarks and conspiratorial whispers had driven Thelma away from the more upwardly mobile tables.

"Look," Thelma said, "I don't know who those guys were or what was going on there, but you can count me out."

"They were probably all college kids getting high." Samantha mused, "College boys always have the best weed."

"Oh really?" Thelma said. When Samantha said something like that, Thelma could never be sure if she was being truthful. All Thelma really did know was that since September, Samantha had run away from home twice and had one pregnancy scare.

"Really," Samantha said, "and if you ask me, you just read too much into the whole thing. If this Brad dude is sitting on a nice fat lawsuit check, he sure as hell will have a bunch of girls at his beck and call. The two biggest aphrodisiacs in the world are washboard abs and a personal fortune."

Peanut sighed sadly, "I am so screwed when I get to college."

"Poor Peanut." Thelma said, "I should have taken you to the dance."

"Oh sure, and I'll just pencil in regular beatings from Winston from now until the end of time."

Samantha waved her hand, "Oh, he's too busy with his new girl. Any regrets there, Thelma? I mean, that was a pretty good set of abs you left behind there."

"Robin can keep those abs," Thelma said, "I've got better things to do with my time."

The routine of school and home was broken up on Wednesday nights and Saturday afternoons by flipping burgers. It wasn't the best job in the world, but it got her out of the house and earned her a little spending cash. On the days when the manager was there, the job was bearable, mostly because he spent most of the shift in his office drinking. Unfortunately, this Wednesday night wasn't one of those shifts; the assistant manager, Blanche Costello, was in charge, and she was a bear.

If someone had told her about Blanche, Thelma would have rolled her eyes at the obvious exaggerations, but truth was unfortunately more irritating than fiction. Blanche was skinny, with over-permed hair, over-tanned skin, and a prodigious nose. She reminded Thelma of nothing more than a cartoon buzzard. Thelma also learned quickly that the only thing Blanche hated more than her life was the teenagers she had been in charge of. When Blanche held court, the employees were not allowed to talk to each other while on the clock, breaks were skipped whenever possible, and lunches were grudgingly granted late in the shift.

Sixth months of working at Burger Clown had taught Thelma not to cross the woman, but there was a history quiz on Thursday morning, and she really wanted that fifteen-minute break for studying. Fifteen minutes in a four-hour shift, was that so much to ask?

Clearly it was. The request had sent Blanche screeching, and the next thing Thelma knew, she was outside searching the parking lot for trash and dog poop.

Burger Clown was one of the three businesses on the road that led to Eagle Ridge Mall. And it was the only one that hadn't gone under. Grumbling to herself, Thelma walked the circumference of the Burger Clown parking lot, a dustpan in one hand, a ratty broom in the other. Cars sped by, filling the air with exhaust.

Well, it could be worse. Thelma tried to tell herself as she walked around the parking lot. On Saturday, she made two of the college guys climb onto the dumpster to jump up and down on the garbage so it wouldn't have to be emptied for a few more days.

Thelma gagged a little at the memory of the smell those boys brought back with them.

I'll just get to school early and study in homeroom. Thelma decided as she walked along the rear of the parking lot, picking up wadded paper cups and napkins. Thelma went to work at a particularly hardened piece of gum and then just gave up and sat down on the curb. She stared sullenly across the parking lot to the abandoned gas station.

I should just quit. I bet Samantha could get me a job working with her at the Fashion Bug, or heck maybe Peanut could get me a paper route. Anything but this, anything…

A black pickup truck pulled into the parking lot of the empty service station. Thelma sat up; she had heard from one of her co-workers that hookers took their johns to the back of the building to turn tricks.

Turn tricks. Thelma mused at the turn of phrase. There were so many metaphors for that one thing, and it seemed that between high school and work, she had heard just about all of them. Meanwhile, Mom and Dad still haven't had 'The Talk' with me yet.

The truck's engine idled, and the headlights shifted from low to high beams. Thelma waited, wondering what she would see, wondering what she wanted to see.

She certainly didn't expect to see Brad get out of the truck. The very sight of him sent competing shudders of fear and excitement along her spine. Brad walked to the passenger side and pulled out a bulky shape wrapped in a dark dropcloth. He hefted it and brought it over to the gas station's side entrance; the door swung open with a nudge of his hip.

He half-dragged and carried the shape into the building. The door swung to a close behind him. Thelma held her breath, expecting him to come right back out again, but he stayed in there.

What's he doing? She wondered.

Thelma thought again of the girl on the mattress and the men kneeling over her. She thought of their faces; you didn't see faces like that anymore- there were surgeries and cures.

Lights flashed in the abandoned gas station, brief eruptions of emerald-tinged illumination that filled the building's dark windows and faded away. It was as though Brad were striking a flint or playing with firecrackers. Thelma wondered if she could get closer without being discovered. She stood, leaving the dustpan behind but keeping the broom in case she needed a weapon.

Thelma made it halfway across the parking lot before Blanche Costello caught sight of her and started yelling for her to get back inside and start manning the fry station.

Next: Chapter Five →

This is Channel Ab3 Episode Thirty-Seven: Brad's Oracles Part Two

2025-06-01T06:03:00.001-04:00

At her 1982 Spring Dance, Thelma French meets Brad Waterman, drawn to his green eyes. They talk about stars and walk to Spook Hill, where Brad shares his eerie family history. Inside his home, Thelma meets six peculiar girls and, disturbed by a shocking scene, quickly leaves.

'Brad's Oracles' was written by Al Bruno III

It was produced and read by  Molly Cundall

This episode's music was by Universfield

Our unpaid scientific advisor is Adam J Thaxton

The Channel Ab3 theme was written and performed by Rachel F Williams

Credits and recaps were read and produced by Sharvin aka Lucky Boy Charm

Channel Ab3 logo was designed by Antonio G

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This is Channel Ab3 is distributed and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Sharealike 4.0 International License

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BRAD'S ORACLES: Chapter Three

2025-05-29T05:04:00.006-04:00