Shock Totem 6: Curious Tales of the Macabre and Twisted

by Shock Totem

  Like in The Lesser People, by Thomas Morgan, my pen name, I used what my uncle Steven had done (stealing Army M-16s and selling them to the KKK) to drive the narrative forward. The idea germinated further when I was at the bar drinking a beer and watching a boxing match on television. It was a black guy versus a white guy. I wanted the white guy to win, though I didn’t know either fighter. So, I’m like, Goddamn, I may have some racial conditioning I hadn’t really thought about before, so let’s explore that with what Uncle Steven did with the KKK in Mississippi, and then give a boy a father who doesn’t view blacks as “the lesser people,” but just as people. Let’s set the town against the boy’s father, and against the boy, too, who they feel is ruined by his father’s viewpoint.

  It’s a fast-paced and interesting book that I think addresses some very hard questions that most people don’t answer honestly. I think family conditioning is a huge part of what forms and feeds our demons, what we’re taught to demand of ourselves (even if its bullshit) and what we’re taught to expect from other people.

  KW: Tackling racial issues is a brave thing to do in this day and age, especially when people seem to have lost the ability to differentiate between something that is racial and something that is racist. Two hugely different beasts.

  LT: Agreed. All I know is people will see in it what they bring to it.

  KW: But perception can be a career killer. Remember recently when Victoria Hoyt’s novel, Saving the Pearls: Defending Eden, was deemed racist by hundreds if not thousands of people who undoubtedly had never read it? Now, maybe the book was racist (I never read it), but that didn’t matter. Public perception dictated that it was. The book’s sales ranking on Amazon was in the millions (which meant it wasn’t selling at all), yet it had hundreds of one-star reviews, all slamming the author for being a racist.

  LT: Yeah, I remember that happening and I remember thinking this: Mobs sicken me, especially when we use our own ignorance as a shield in the name of equality, or any cause for that matter. The Lesser People will have some haters who never read it and will rate it one star and call it racist, too, but it will also have lovers because it’s about the impact racism and fairness have on our children and how they carry that bias or understanding with them into adulthood.

  If a mob attacks you, all you can do is pity them. Their reasoning is simple: Some are frustrated cowards who use it as a way to be cruel with an easy justification since so many other people are “on their side,” and some do it because they get to feel special and think, Hey, I was part of something that mattered and made a difference! And some others do it because they want to be accepted by their peers even if secretly they’re indifferent to the whole ordeal.

  KW: You just described the Internet. Speaking of which, you’re kind of separated from the whole social media/networking aspect of the small press, having removed yourself toward the outer fringe of it all. Do you think you’re at a disadvantage, to an extent, because you’re not out there in everyone’s face?

  LT: I think I’m definitely at a disadvantage when it comes to winning any type of award. Writers aren’t saints and some will trade votes with their buddies. It’s natural, I guess, but I don’t like it. I’m very proud and very stubborn, too, so I want the work to stand on its own merit, and if it has no merit, then it can fade into oblivion or whatever it’s going to do.

  But am I at a disadvantage to finding readers (which is the real goal to me)? I’d say no. People just want a good story that makes them laugh or cry or reassess who they are and if they’re happy with what they discover. I think Goodreads is the best place for a writer to find their audience. I’m a guest author on the group Horror Aficionados for January, and it’s been great to interact with readers and its really boosted sales on When We Join Jesus in Hell—which I recommend to anybody who wants to try my writing.

  KW: We have a lot in common, I think. For instance, I refuse to pander to the popular crowd with Shock Totem. New “publishers” pop up left and right these days, and most immediately start gunning for the top dogs in the genre. I refuse to do that; opting, rather, to go the route of just publishing quality fiction, no matter who wrote it. And we’ve published brilliant stuff from authors most would call “no-names.” It hasn’t won us any awards, either. But, like you, I’m damn proud. A bit stubborn, too. Maybe.

  LT: Yes, we do have a lot in common. And I’ve loved Shock Totem since the beginning because of your integrity and vision. I think it takes being damn proud of what you’re creating for it to have some value, and stubbornness is the salve of the road-weary. The fact is, odd ducks like us know what’s right for us, and a lot of times it doesn’t mesh with the majority’s way of doing things, but it’s more important for us to blaze our own trails.

  KW: Indeed. But still, the small press has been very good to both of us. Without asking you to bite the hand that feeds, what kind of pitfalls do you think present themselves to young authors just starting out, and how best should they avoid them?

  LT: Expectations are a real bitch. We all want to think that what we’ve written is going to change the genre and make us famous, but it’s not. For every Joe Hill there are ten million mediocre writers, some who just have to study the craft more; and then there are the dangerous ones, who think they’re already a genius and have no more work to tackle.

  KW: The “dangerous” ones (i.e. bad writers) are everywhere, especially now that self-publishing takes no effort and virtually no money. And they support the hell out of each other, which means that we, the readers, are drowning in mediocrity and worse. Finding the Joe Hills is quite a task for readers.

  LT: I have yet to buy a self-published book. I have about thirty go-to authors and it’s a joy to try and stay caught up with their work. And I highly doubt I’d buy a self-published book even if I made time to read one. Bad writers are usually just impatient and lazy writers. And yes, they’ve come out of the woodwork since there is no editor to reject them at Amazon or Smashwords.

  I get part of their deal. It’s instant gratification. I wrote for eight years without selling squat. It’s tough. But I like the traditional route and the intrinsic value in selling to a tough market where the editor’s team have read thousands upon thousands upon thousands of stories in the course of a single year. There will come a tipping point when the majority of those bad/lazy/impatient writers give up because they’re not moving any copies but to their support buddies, if that.

  KW: And going that route, the traditional route, has worked well for you so far.

  LT: I’ve only dealt with three small presses. Two have been wonderful, one not so much. The biggest drawback of selling to the small press is that you’re not going to get a lot of marketing money invested in you, so count on doing a lot of it yourself, which doesn’t come easy if you’re a loner or poor. You can’t count on living on a thousand dollars up front, and you can’t expect a small outfit to give you much more than that. And you have to adjust to how long it takes to get paid, which comes as such a shock at first. You sell a short story, novella, or novel in May, and you don’t get paid until around release, so you could be waiting a year. So you have to learn to pay things in advance, like get a check and pay your rent for the next three months while you’re working on your next story.

  And if you’re going to approach the small presses, find one like DarkFuse that pays on time and sends quarterly royalty statements. Going a year without a royalty statement for something you’ve sold, and that’s out there now for sale, is ridiculous. There are tons of “presses” that do little or no editing, and that hurts a writer more than helps them. A big plus to me, with DarkFuse, is that Shane pays for copyediting, cover artwork, and has a promotion plan. Many don’t.

  KW: But writers should research a publisher. Publishers doing little or no editing are easy to spot, if the writer does research. Sadly, it seems, most don’t.

  LT: I agree! And this goes back to lazy writers. These are the same writers who will expect you to pay them professiona
l rates but for some godforsaken reason refuse to read the guidelines (which are never hard to find). They’re too lazy to sample a copy of a publisher’s wares to see how well it’s edited, too. It all comes back to the writer to research, like you said. It’s our responsibility. The information we need is about .003 seconds away...

  KW: People always come up to me at cons, complaining, in jest and not, about how many times we’ve rejected them. I always ask if they’ve read Shock Totem. Many have, of course, and some pretend to have (those of the vague replies), but far too many admit that they have not. Maybe if they sampled an issue they’d understand why we keep rejecting their epic YA fantasy westerns.

  LT: Exactly. Stephen King said it in On Writing. Buy sample copies and read them so you’re not throwing darts in the dark and hoping to hit a target that you don’t deserve to hit. But that’s also one of things that separates the amateurs from the pros. Writers want “secrets” that will unlock the door of publication, but many totally skip the common sense stuff.

  KW: It’s so easy, too. And it’s not like our issues, for instance, are expensive. Most publications are very affordable. Anyway, speaking of the pros, what do you have on tap?

  LT: I have two pen-named novels with an agent (The Lesser People, and The Wolverine) that I hope to sell to bigger houses this year. I’m nearly finished with a standalone novel (Gossamer: A Story of Love and Tragedy) for DarkFuse that I’m extremely excited about. And I’m almost ready to start the first Julian Vaughn novel (Earthly Things).

  As to ideas, I have a dozen for novels and nothing for novellas or short stories right now. Over the next couple years I’m directing all of my energy to writing four novels a year (one each as Lee Thompson, Thomas Morgan, James Logan, and Julian Vaughn.) I have to get the twelve novel ideas I have now written so I can let my imagination work on developing more, for another sprint.

  KW: That’s quite an undertaking.

  LT: It is. But I wrote three novels and started a fourth novel last year, despite a very busy personal life. This year I have nothing to do but read and write and get drunk, so I’m expecting I’ll write four novels easily. If I look hard at my work ethic, I think I’ll more than likely write six novels this year. I just finished the first that took the last month to write, and I’ll be halfway into the next novel by the time this is printed. I believe we all have our own natural stride when it comes to writing, mine is fast and fluid.

  KW: A month to write? I hate you. Maybe I should drink more.

  LT: Like I said, we each have our own speed when it comes to output, and a lot of it has nothing to do with how much time we have, just how much energy that hasn’t been stripped away by regular life. I think writing each day when our focus is the highest is the best thing we can do to be productive. But drinking does help. It rids inhibition and helps us write more honestly (and sloppily if we go beyond a slight buzz).

  KW: Ah, so you’re not getting blitzed. That’s good to know. Well, brotherman, I’m looking forward to what comes next. Thanks so much for taking the time and answering these questions. It’s been a blast.

  LT: Same here, Ken. Thanks so much for everything and to all the people who have given my work a try!

  And a big shout out to my pre-readers: Shaun Ryan, Kevin Wallis, Chris McCaffrey, and Charlene Cocrane.

  THE RIVER

  by Lee Thompson

  Her neck itches. She’s been on the island a week, trapped beneath heavy fog, camped out near the inlet where the water flows down from a hidden mountain spring. On the seventh day the first letter in a bottle bobs along the surface and is trapped by sand where the rocks give way to beach. She pulls the cork, wincing, trying not to look at her bruised and bloody fingers. Please, she thinks. Let this be something good. Let it be something to help me remember what came before.

  The river churns. Clouds rock against the sky, and though fear for so many things gnaws at her guts, she believes there is still a way out of here. A way home.

  The paper, old and yellowed, nearly falls apart in her hands as she unrolls it.

  She sobs, “No, don’t break.”

  A flowing script stains the page, fills her heart with more questions, a tenseness that hurts her shoulders. She reads aloud, “You are not alone, my dear.”

  But I am, she thinks. I always have been.

  She tears the paper into tiny bits and throws them to the wind, only to regret it a moment later. Stupid. She’s never felt so stupid.

  She glances at the shore where she’s washed up. Pieces of white fiberglass litter the beach like dead whales, loose pieces of clothing, a body. She steps back. It hurts to breathe, because from where she stands the body looks like hers. She scrapes a nail against her palm, bites her lip, figures there is only one way to be certain, but still backing away regardless.

  Flies swarm the bloated corpse.

  She holds a hand to her mouth to stifle a scream, chokes down the bile at the back of her throat.

  Not bloated...

  Pregnant, she thinks. She was pregnant. Tracing her fingers over her own abdomen, feeling life there, soft and quick, she stares at the body, unable to near it. She weeps.

  I’m in the middle of nowhere and I’m going to have a baby.

  She doesn’t know who is better off, her lying dead there on the beach, or her staring at herself, with no knowledge of how to care for a child, let alone self-deliver one.

  She thinks it might help if she has a name. That’s a start, she thinks, searching her memory for one that fits. When no names interest her, she heads back to the dead fire, the sleeping bag that smells of mold, and escapes the stifling heat beneath the forest’s shadows.

  An hour later another bottle bangs against the river bank. She approaches it cautiously.

  Someone has written with black marker on the inside of the bottle, just a single word: April.

  Her eyes wet, she stares at it for a long time. She has a name now but no one to share it with.

  She faces the woods and screams, “Who are you?”

  And the forest echoes a desperate cry...

  “Who am I?”

  • • •

  Other bodies wash up along the rim of the island. They cook in the sun. She drags them to the fire, leans them against palm trees, tells them that they have nothing to fear anymore because they are among friends. There are two women and two men. She wonders if one of them is her husband, her brother, or her father.

  She touches her belly, thinks, You can’t pull the disappearing act here.

  She asks them, “Do you think I’m strong enough to breast feed? Can a body survive on fish and berries? I’m always hungry.”

  They nod but say nothing. Windswept hair covers their eyes. Sand glistens on their chins. Their flesh is blue and black but beautiful. She hates how her lips always taste like salt, shakes her head, figures they are all in the same boat, so she says nothing because she doesn’t want to appear weak.

  • • •

  She uses pieces of the wreckage to build a little condominium.

  At first she doesn’t like how Minnie is looking at Frank, but in the end she figures they are right for each other. They both have some venom in them and the capacity for tenderness and understanding that it’d take to make it work. She leaves them alone, hoping that they’ll realize how right they are for each other, and maybe one day they’ll thank her, when they have their friends over for dinner, everyone laughing, remembering how Frank proposed at Disney World in a Mickey Mouse costume, asking Minnie to take his hand.

  Jude, who she thinks looks a lot like Jude Law, seems to have eyes for her. She believes it is because he knows something no one else knows. She asks him, in private, while the other three are away, “Is this fate?”

  He tips his head to the side, gives her a look that says, What a dumb question.

  She blinks and undoes her blouse, thinking, Do you recognize these? Are they yours?

  But he doesn’t care about her tits. He places his hand on her belly and s
miles.

  You’re amazingly smooth, she thinks. Just another player working the angles, showing me you’re not just an animal so I’ll never let you go. But I’m on to you, cute or not.

  Jessica is the quiet one. Something tells her she’ll have to watch out for that bitch. She imagines the skank trying to worm her way between Frank and Minnie, not that she blames her for having the urge, Frank is a very caring and understanding man, but still. You have to draw your own lines because no one else will.

  When Frank won’t bite, Jessica slides up to Jude’s side.

  “Oh no, you don’t.”

  They stare at her. Both of them shrugging like they’re kids, like they don’t care. And it hits her hard. They don’t love her, just see her as some type of motherly figure. She thinks it must be the baby. She stumbles back to the beach. She stares at herself for a while, at the skin splitting as stars pierce the sky and the flies buzz and maggots squirm like pearls upon her chest.

  She looks at her feet and says, “I don’t know if I can bring a baby into such a messed up world.”

  • • •