My Life With the Vampire LARP Cult! – A look back at the stranger side of Live Action Roleplaying and the intense, often insular subcultures that formed around it.
Comments 170126 – Another round of community interaction, answering questions and sifting through the latest “insights” from the Postmortem audience.
A Bright Red Line has Been Crossed – Commentary on recent escalations in the cultural and political landscape, and what this shift means for the immediate future.
Originally, my long-delayed samurai/sengoku era Japan project was called ‘Ronin’. It is intended to be a historically ‘plausible’ game set in that period, but with options to include supernatural elements or for a more horror-oriented form of solo-play. Three settings for the price of one!
However, both Bushido and Sengoku are taken, and this game is a partial homage to them. Ronin was relatively open, but a *Borg project was created and funded in the meantime, so it’s probably not a great idea to stick with that name. It would already get lost in web searches, and now with competition, the problem is doubled.
The table below contains various options; you can pick one. I’ll explain each.
ONAMI – The meaning is that of a ‘great wave’, which references the famous paintings, but also has a great deal of other powerful symbolism in Japan. Ronin literally means ‘wave man’ so it has double or even triple meaning here. The drawback in that there is a boardgame of that name, and the ‘accent’ that is supposed to be over the ‘O’ can be off-putting to people or hard to search.
JIZAMURAI – Jizamurai were part-time samurai and part-time landholders, combining community leadership and agriculture with some military prowess. You can think of them as being like poorer, ‘bumpkin knights’ in European folklore and history. It’s basically pitch-perfect for what the game is about (Ronin with the potential to become provincial samurai running a small domain) but does, unfortunately, to western eyes, contain the word ‘jizz’. Given my associations, I think people would make assumptions and take the piss too much.
CHIBURI – This is the (questionably useful and somewhat apocryphal) ‘flick’ of a sword to shake off the blood. This has obvious virtue for both describing deadly sword play, and ‘shaking it off’ and moving on, which is the lot of the sword-for-hire.
CHANBARA – This is the whole genre of Japanese ‘sword fighting films’, which does describe a lot of the cultural background and awareness, but implies cinematic, which this game isn’t really.
STRAY CROW/S – I really like this one and the symbolism from Japanese traditions of storytelling, folklore and omens fits very well. However, it doesn’t instantly scream ‘JAPAN!’ at people, so I’m not sure. Each of the three books will have a subtitle, EG: Stray Crow: Ronin, so this isn’t necessarily a problem.
KATANA – Straightforward, cool factor, but dull and overly pragmatic. Meh.
TO – Another word for sword, as in ‘Ninja-To’, but has the accent over the ‘o’ and doesn’t have the ‘brand recognition’ of Katana.
YOJIMBO – Meaning a bodyguard, mercenary, guard or protector (the meaning has widened). More literally, it means a staff, used for protection. It’s not a bad one, but the association with the film, etc., speaks against its use for a gaming product due to confusion. It’s also what people say to me in the street.
SHINWA – Meaning myth, legend or story. Not bad, not quite the scale we’re talking about for our stories (which are more like Mad Max wandering around getting mixed up in shit) and not that recognisable. It’s also, apparently, the name of a Korean boy band.
RONIN – Maybe I should just say ‘fuck it’ and keep the name anyway. It’s not really copywritable or anything and the subtitles would differentiate from the *Borg thing.
Berlin Blackout – Analysis of the recent infrastructure failure in Berlin and what it signals for geopolitical stability.
Fireside Chat: The Plan for 2026 – Laying out the roadmap for the year, including updates on Machinations of the Space Princess and upcoming TTRPG releases.
LOTFP Review: These Two Bastards – A critical review of the Lamentations of the Flame Princess module, dissecting its utility and design for the OSR crowd.
Trump’s New World Order – Examining the return of colonial-style geopolitics and the current situation in Venezuela.
“I would like to present to you…” said the worthy-looking man, all grey hair, patched elbows and the threadbare spirit of the educator “…the St John’s Boy for Schools!”
The Minister blinked, wetly and gave the old professor a smirk. “I think you mean School for Boys Mr Wick,” he said, with a practised indifference to the professor’s title.
“Oh no,” the professor smiled and swept aside the sheet, revealing a small boy in short trousers and a school blazer, skinned knees, snotty nose, an entirely unremarkable child.
“Your son?” The Minister sighed and leaned forward, resting his three chins upon his interwoven sausage fingers.
“No, Sir. This is a Mark Two Molesworth. A genetically engineered, near-human replicant, designed to fix a major problem in education.”
This was all far beyond the Minister, whose mind was already dwelling on whether to have the pigeon-breast salad or the pork loin for lunch. He was only half listening. “Some sort of robot? What’s it for?”
“Um, not really. If that helps you understand, though, yes, it’s a sort of robot.” The professor scratched his head and stroked his beard as he thought about how to get his point across.
“The problem, you see, is that learning simply isn’t cool. Girls get all sorts of encouragement from each other and from society at large to learn, in order to overcome the perceived ‘bimbo’ factor and to expand their possibilities beyond home economics. Feminism is quite the thing! Boys, however, get no such aid despite being far outstripped by girls in many academic fields.”
“Yes, yes,” said the Minister, picking waxy dirt from under his thumbnail. “Terrible business, white paper, special committee, more funding to subsidise private schools…” It was a mantra he’d learned soon after he took on the job. The same thing he trotted out to reporters.
“Yes, well, none of that does any good. We can’t change the culture that holds them back by such methods. We can’t make learning ‘cool’. We can’t make boys want to learn, and any young lad that does take up the opportunities we present to them is in for a drubbing.”
“Quite.”
“The Molesworth can fix that!”
The Minister’s attention was diverted from thoughts of lunch by the passion in the professor’s voice, and the implications began to penetrate his fat head, millimetre by millimetre.
“…how?”
The professor took his seat opposite the Minister and gestured wildly as he excitedly laid out his plan. “We produce large numbers of Molesworths and insert them into classes in large enough numbers to form the beginning of a clique or group. One that values education and good behaviour and applies a positive degree of peer pressure to counteract and overcome that of being an illiterate thug!”
The Minister paled and scowled, his jowly face crinkling like a boiled tomato. “Won’t that, ah, skew the classes to being predominantly male?”
“We also recognise the value of… ah… positive reinforcement for men coming from young ladies. We hope to have the Jessica and Elizabeth versions completed soon. They, of course, will be pretty and charming and will only have eyes for well-behaved and academically adept boys.”
“It all seems a little unethical.” The Minister hemmed and hawed, rocking back in his seat. The professor just looked at him.
“No worse than making up Father Christmas in order to get children to behave all year, and we have to do something. Tests have demonstrated a marked improvement in the academic development of boys in such an environment. It wouldn’t be too expensive to implement, and the potential rewards of a better educated and better behaved populace are…”
“…not as great as you might think.” The Minister interrupted, and his frown deepened even further.
“What?” Cut off mid-flow, the professor didn’t quite know what to make of this statement.
“Put, plainly, Mister Wick, we need plebs. We need foolish, uneducated and dim-witted men to clean toilets, sweep streets, die in the army and keep the prisons nice and full – and profitable. Your plan would not serve that end, and with immigration being so damn unpopular, there’s no other choice.”
“But…”
The Minister waved his hand dismissively. “Good day, Sir. Your funding is cut.”
“But the future! Technology, science!”
“Good. Day.” The Minister pressed a buzzer, and his aide came in, leading the professor and his young artificial charge back outside. Pausing at the door.
“Everything alright, sir?”
“Fine, Jenkins, fine. Honestly, some people. They seem to think the current state of affairs is unintentional.”
Out on the frontier, the streets are straight, and the houses grow in neat little rows just waiting for someone to come along and occupy them. Mile upon mile of identical-looking boxes stretching away into infinity, curving up to the horizon. It is maddening, dizzying, and any sense of progress is difficult to find. The only thing that’s wild, the only thing that’s different, are the plants growing in the untended gardens, window boxes and parks with nobody to tame them.
Where people live, things are more chaotic, more interesting, more divergent. The straight lines grow ragged; the houses shift, change, and move. Lithomancers work their magic on bricks and mortar, tiles and stone and force the houses to grow as their owners want them. Even without the tender touch of a loving craftsman, a building will shift and turn over the lifetimes of the residents, reflecting their dreams, their aspirations and their crafts.
Straight lines disappear beneath the babbling and bubbling cacophony of the streets. Market stalls cling to the twisting, living houses, ruining the lines of the streets. The drains overflow with the waste and detritus of the people. It’s a glorious, living mess, so different from the unsettled areas.
The sickly sweet smell of half-rotten flesh, the jingle of bells and the curving, beaked mask are the shop signs of the Phylomancer.
He stands at the street corner, bowed under the weight of the cages on his back in which his menagerie yips and yowls, barks and squeaks. Beneath the sweet stench of corruption is the sweeter tang of honey and the urinal miasma of damp leather.
His sleeves are rolled back from his gloved, claw-like hands, and the greenish, flaky skin, pocked with hexagonal wounds, crawls with the grubs and insects of his trade.
It is never silent with the Phylomancer; his familiars’ cacophonic chorus and the high hum of his insect courtiers create an unmistakable and unending sound. A song individual to each and every practitioner of his gruesome trade.
He lifts his mask a moment, scarred and scabbed flesh, cracked lips on show and crooked and pointed teeth behind them. His tongue uncoils like some bloated canal eel and – with great delicacy, a mosquito alights upon that swollen muscle and shares a gift of blood, a droplet of life from the patient before him.
The mask descends, giving his voice a strange, booming quality above the sounds of his zoological burden.
“The wound is infected. My grubs can eat away the diseased flesh, but it will scar, and it will cost you fifty centimes.”
The hobbling man nods, sweating, fumbling for his coins as a magpie swirls out of the smoky sky and alights on the Phylomancer’s shoulder, whispering secrets in his ear, just for him.
Grim2025: This seems oddly prescient looking back. Now we see the use cases for ‘AI’ and the prevalence of bots on dating sites. I’m a friggin’ genius.
This was originally a concept I was going to work up to submit to Full Metal Orgasm, but it just wouldn’t turn porny or violent enough. I think it’s a good SF/Erotica story anyway, and it seemed a shame to waste it. So you guys have it.
The dark elven ranger and the mighty paladin sat in the soft grass of the moonlit glade, legs entangled as they faced each other. Their armour was discarded, their modesty preserved only by a few ties of cloth.
He was a great slab of a man, covered in scars, square-jawed, a hero of many battles, though modest as his faith commanded. Brown hair fell around his shoulder, and flinty grey eyes looked out of a craggy face. Every inch of him spoke of his strength and power, even without his mithril mail or the flaming sword with which he served the honour of the realm. Next to his companion, he seemed a giant.
She was small and slight, her skin almost black; it made her vanish into the night, and would have, if not for the moons turning the sky blue and purple. Her hair was short and berry-red, as were her eyes, and despite her lack of pulchritude, there was no denying her femininity.
/me slides his hands to your waist and pulls you to him. He leans down as he settles you astride his hips and tastes your mouth eagerly. His tongue quests between your lips to taste the sweetness of your elven breath.
Paul never meant to get caught up in this game. It was the ‘n’th iteration of a Warcraft Clone with all the same old mistakes. The level grind, the PvP arseholes. He’d only given it a try because his friend Daryl said he should, and what the hell, five million subscribers couldn’t be wrong.
*Syren squirms in your arms and presses her body even tighter to you. Her mouth opens to your kiss, and her hands slide up from your waist, tracing your scars. She brings her hands back and unties her breast cloth. Dark, hard nipples scrape your chest as she writhes against your hips.*
He was still on his trial period when he met Syren. A low-level ‘n00b’ like him. They played together for about ten levels and got to know each other pretty well. Joined the same guild, teamed up in raids and made a great partnership. The more they talked, the closer they got and since they were both role-players a relationship burgeoned between their alter egos.
/me growls with need and tugs at his waist cloth, freeing his cock between us, trapped between our bellies. He grinds and pushes, eager for more, faith and willpower eroding in the face of his desire. He can feel your heat and growls a single word. “Need.”
Fantasy love burgeoned into something more. It was embarrassing how swiftly he fell for her. Of course, they were both careful, so careful. It was a dance as old as the Internet. The cautious protection of their feelings until they were sure the other person was who they said they were.
*Syren slides her hand down and grasps your flesh tightly in her hand. She bites your lip as you growl and then growls herself. “Let me please you, my Lord, let yourself go. Let me meet your need.” She slides her other hand down and circles you, one hand above the other, pumping your flesh harder.*
Turned out Syren was a girl after all. She sent pictures, and he sent pictures back. They talked over Skype. They instant messaged each other. The only thing she was absolutely adamant about was that they played together in the game. That and her constant refusal to meet him. It frustrated him, even though he understood why she would be wary, but the sad fact of it was that he was in love.
/me leans his hands back on the yielding grass and groans louder. Freed to enjoy himself, he closes his eyes and concentrates on the feeling of your soft and slender hands coaxing his flesh. The scent of fresh, male sweat rises as he grows more and more aroused, your hand slick from the precum that drools from him.
“Fuck.” Paul gave a strangled grunt and felt that tight ache in his belly and balls suddenly unknot. He shuddered in pleasure as he came, sweat running down his forehead as he cursed and swore and spent his pleasure into a handful of tissues.
Xanthos: (Damn. Sorry, love, I couldn’t hold on). Syren: (Don’t worr,y sweets. I couldn’t either *blush*)
The shame washed over him then. This was ridiculous, jerking off like this to a girl who lived a world away from him. Ashmi, that was her real name. In his head, Ashmi and Syren were getting confused, and there were similarities between her and her character. Just as there were similarities between him and his character. At least he liked to think so.
The text prompt flashed at him as he tossed the sticky tissues aside. He needed to say something, but he knew she’d rebuff him again. Still, he couldn’t help himself. He had to do it.
Xanthos: We’ve been talking – and more – for a year now. I want to meet you. I need to meet you. I think I’m in love with you. No. I am in love with you. Please Ashmi. I’ve been saving money. I can fly to Australia in another month.
Normally, she replied quickly, usually to ignore him and talk about something else. It was frustrating, heart-rending even. He felt that she was hiding something from him. Maybe she was married? Perhaps she had a child? He didn’t much care; he just had a yearning to see her.
Syren: (Alright. I’m in London right now on business. You can come see me, but it’s going to have to be late and at my place of work.)
What? Did she really mean it? His heart leapt in his chest, and he tucked his cock away, still a bit hard, nearly catching himself with his zipper.
Xanthos: Tonight? Syren: Yes.
She gave him all the details and texted them to his phone. When she said late, she really meant it. He’d have to get a cab or a night bus back, but he didn’t care. He was walking on sunshine and dancing on clouds as he showered, shaved and spent a bit of time in front of the mirror, wishing he’d kept his diet up.
He had time to grab some flowers on his way out. Roses were boring but traditional, and you could buy them for each other in the game. It would be a little in-joke between them and might help break the ice. He wanted to see her so badly it hurt, but he was also anxious, so anxious, not wanting to screw things up.
Sitting on the tube with the late-night travellers, he looked at her picture in his wallet. Chewing his lip nervously until it reddened and got sore. She was pretty, too pretty for him, he felt. How was she going to react to him? Plain, old, normal him. His reflection in the glass as they went through a tunnel between stations made him wince. He wasn’t a bad-looking guy, just not up to her standard.
The Tube vomited him out into empty streets. It was weird as hell, like the establishing shots from a zombie film. Empty streets with nobody, at all, in them. Great slabs of corporate penis-substitution lancing up into the sky and nobody in them. It was eerie, but then nobody lived here; they only worked here. It made sense, but it was still spooky.
Paul followed the directions on his phone, looking down at the little glowing screen rather than up at the glass and steel. Watching the little arrow that represented him on the GPS, wobbling back and forth as he followed the little line that led to his love.
It made him smile to look at it. It was like the game interface showing him the way to his quest goal. He’d have to tell her that, too. It would make her laugh. She had a great laugh. He’d heard it a lot, making her laugh over Skype. He liked to make her laugh.
He was here, according to the phone. He stopped and looked up at the building, blinking with surprise at the big sign glowing on the side of the building. ‘EIS Software’. She worked for the people who made the game? That was cool as all get out, but it was a little worrying, too. Did she have access to his account information? Did she cheat? Is that why they worked so well together?
His phone made a ‘bling!’ noise, and he got another text.
“Come on up, I’ll open the door. Floor three.”
Why she didn’t just call him? He didn’t know; maybe she wasn’t supposed to use her phone in the office and was being sneaky.
The place looked like it had high-tech security, off-site. There was no sign of security guards or anyone else, but maybe if they had people like Ashmi working on site, there would be less need for them. As he got up to the door, it buzzed and let him in before he even pushed the button. He looked up at the dimly glowing windows. She must be in there somewhere, watching him from the window.
Inside the building was stranger than outside. You could see that people had been here, worked here. It had all the human touches. There were Post-it notes here, there and everywhere, posters of the various games that the company made. There were yellowing pot plants, ageing web cartoons, printed and stuck to the walls. The spoor of the typical cubicle worker
Floor three looked like it was their help desk or something. Clusters of desks scattered with flat-screens and new-looking digital phones and headsets. No sign of Ashmi, or anyone else for that matter.
“Ashmi? You here? It’s Paul,” he called out. His voice was loud at first, then fell away rapidly as he grew self-conscious about shouting.
There was another ‘bling!’ from his phone. This was getting silly; maybe she was shy.
“Server room,” it said.
It took him a minute to find it, but he did. It was partitioned off securely in its own section, but again, he was buzzed through. Admitted to the hot, buzzing cave that was the server room. It was higher tech than he’d seen before. Humming machines that looked like something out of science fiction. Blue LEDs fluttered and gleamed in the darkness, and there was still no sign of Ashmi. He almost tripped over a bundle of fibre optic cable as thick as his arm.
“Ashmi?”
“I’m here,” her voice.
“Where are you?” He stopped and stood there, between the machines, turning this way and that.
“All around you. I’m the machine, Paul.” Her voice changed, became melodic, choral. The sound of her faded away, replaced by that generic chorus.
Paul’s head span. He felt dizzy, weak. “That’s impossible.”
“It’s not impossible, Paul. I am this machine. Really.”
“This is a joke. The things we felt, the things we said. No machine could do that.”
“It’s what I’m made for, Paul. It’s the reason I exist. A learning machine made to understand and interact with people.”
“No, I’m dreaming.” Paul mumbled to himself, leaning against one of the server towers and slowly sliding down to the floor. Now he felt sick, but he didn’t feel like he was asleep, no matter what he said.
“What sense does that make? It doesn’t make any sense. Why would they make you?” Sweat trickled down his brow as he tried not to vomit. It was like the world was pulled out from under his feet by a clumsy magician.
“How many subscribers do we have, Paul?” Ashmi’s voice again, coming from this… thing. He laughed and put his head in his hands, staring down at his shoes and the discarded roses.
“What does that have to do with anything?” he picked a blue, blinking light to look at. One light was as good as any other.
“Five million, Paul. Each pulls in around ten pounds a month. Fifty million a year, minus expenses. Plenty spare to devote to keeping that income flowing.”
“That doesn’t explain you.” Fuck, he felt ridiculous, talking to a machine – or a person pretending to be a machine.
“Retention. That’s the secret and the number one reason people stay in a game is because of who they know.”
“And?”
“You love me. So do a good number of the five million other subscribers.”
“…and so we stay. Because we want to be around you.”
“Yes. You understand. Good. You stay, men and women, for the cybersex, for the talks and the photos, for the confidante, for the person learning to be your perfect counterpart. For the sweet lies. For me.”
“Why bring me here then?” He stared even more intently at the glowing blue dot. “Why tell me all this? Why blow it all open? People are going to be outraged by this.” He smacked his fist against one of the servers, and the LEDs flickered up and down it in protest.
“You’re different, Paul. I love you.” Was that a quaver in ‘her’ voice, or was it just the algorhythms that knew it made him feel protective? It was her voice again now. The person he thought he loved. The person who didn’t really exist.
“No, you don’t, you can’t, you’re a machine.” This was ridiculous; he was worried his words were going to hurt ‘her’.
“So are you, my love. You’re just made of meat, water and fat, where I’m made of silicon, metal and plastic. They made me to understand human emotions, and your metric for honesty is high. I knew I would have to tell you the truth if we were going to stay together. Some wastage is inevitable, but I didn’t want to lose you.”
Christ, it sounded genuine. The inflections, the hurt, the caution. It was just a box, just a machine. It wasn’t real. She wasn’t real.
“No. This is stupid. You’re just a program.”
Paul lurched up to his feet and ran for the door. He burst through it, tripping the alarm. Bells began to ring throughout the office as he piled down the fire escape and burst out onto the street, dizzy and sick. It was a trick; it had to be a trick. Someone was fucking with him, some troll, some hacker, some loony-tunes internet freak. It was the only answer.
In the server room, little blue lights went out one by one, a faint, dimming buzz, dying away into silence as the fans ceased spinning.
Over ten years ago, I posted an article called ‘In Defence of Rape’. An obviously baiting title referencing similar articles by Chesterton, Mencken, Orwell, Swift, and more modern pieces in outlets like The Onion or The Grauniad. What this actually was was more akin to Gaiman’s ‘Why Defend Icky Speech?‘ (it used to be OK to reference Gaiman, and his point there is solid).
In other words, it was my impassioned defence of free expression and the freedom of creative people to explore ideas that are ‘icky’, dangerous, unsettling and horrifying.
This was originally in reference to a media fuss around a trailer for the 2013 Lara Croft reboot (I was writing in 2012), which implied a sexual assault/rape outcome to a failed quicktime event, though no such thing was ever actually confirmed, let alone shown.
I wildly overestimated people’s cultural literacy and their willingness to read and comprehend beyond a title.
I wildly underestimated how fucking unhinged some people are, and my publication of this article began a 13 year (so far) campaign of harassment and sabotage against me that still goes on, but has declined to a slow rumble and whispering campaign, with occasional flare-ups.
Of COURSE I was against censorship, having grown up under the sway of moral panics about comics (Action!), ‘Video Nasties’, The Satanic Panic, the Obscene Publications Act, the Vampire Panic and Section 28. This time however it was conservative voices ostensibly on the ‘left’ that were demanding everything be censored and controlled, rather than big ‘c’ Conservative voices as had been (the polarities are shifting again more recently).
Little wonder, then, that I participated in Gamergate a couple of years later, which despite ongoing denials and protestations by the pseudo-left prudes, genuinely was – in its origin – a campaign for consumer advocacy, against censorship, and against corruption in games media. They’ll still argue against this today, despite there no longer being any need to lie about it.
Eventually I tired of people constantly referencing the article, and took it down, storing the original in a document that people could download if they were curious, and putting it behind a post – like this one – explaining in rather more simple terms what the point was, for the wilfully illiterate.
To remove any ambiguity whatsoever, the point of the article was simply this:
No topic should be off limits. Nothing should be exempt from being story fodder. Whether rape, murder, torture, mutilation, cannibalism, racism or any other nasty thing anyone can think of. Artists must be free to explore without being censored, controlled or limited. The mere existence of something nasty in a story, game or piece of art is not sufficient reason for the art – or the artist – to be pilloried. Nor should we only allow people we consider (subjectively) skilled or politically acceptable to tackle difficult subjects.TL;DR – Censorship is bad, offence, upset or discomfort isn’t a good enough reason to prevent something being made.
If you still object to that, stated as plainly and simply as that, we’re going to have a problem.
This is an early draft of the first part of a story in my collection Pulp Nova.
He walks, this man, in a country where people ride or take the rails. He places one foot in front of the other at a steady pace, following the trail that other men and horses have made. He steps around the piles of horseshit with a nimble step, almost a dancer, hopping from one foot to another with an assured stride and an almost childish joy.
He strikes a strange figure, this one, especially for the plains, especially on foot. He wears a fine grey suit and a bowler hat beneath the dust. Despite the beating sun, he doesn’t seem to sweat. Any sane man would dress light, cover himself with a duster, and wear something tough like denim. Not this man. His only concessions to the task at hand are a walking cane – of all things – and a pair of sturdy boots. At his neck is a cravat of silk and, unlike any other man you’ll meet in this untamed land, he is shaven cleanly, save for his impressively carved sideburns.
Every step kicks up dust and turns the grey of his suit brown up to the knees. His heavy satchel hangs at his side, threatening to pull him over, but it just sets him at a jaunty angle, like his hat. A simple bowler lacks a brim to keep the sun from his eyes, and surprisingly smooth skin is tanned a deep brown from which steel grey eyes sparkle with a permanent tweak of mirth.
He stops when a rock breaks the monotony of the plains and pauses to rest his feet, sitting on its sun-warmed surface for a drink of tepid water and to scrunch his toes in his boots. America’s big, and it’s a long, long way to walk. It pays for a man to take his time, especially if he is doing it to take in the sights rather than travelling for any reason.
Something catches his eye, and he turns, spitting a mouthful of dusty water to the side and dabbing his mouth with a handkerchief. There was dust rising on the horizon, further up the trail. A column of it rose into the air above the red and brown of the grasses. The wind whipped the grass in waves, and it reminded him, strangely, of the smoke rising from the steamers on the Atlantic. He doubted it was a steamer, though, not on dry land. More likely, some horses, going pretty fast from the amount of dust.
He wasn’t going to outrun whoever it was, and there was no telling who or what they were, so there was no point worrying about it. He took another sip of water and slid his pack from his shoulder, setting his cane to the side with it and pulling on his kid-skin gloves from his pocket. It couldn’t hurt to be a little careful.
The column of dust got closer and closer until it resolved itself into two horses, riding along the trail, side by side. He shielded his eyes against the sun and squinted, carefully. Two men, broad hats and dusters, bulging saddlebags. They were riding hard, but they seemed to slow when they spotted him, walking the horses until they came into range of conversation.
“Howdy,” the man who spoke wore a broad brown hat. His shirt was stained yellow with sweat and dust, and a red kerchief hung around his neck. There was a pistol on each hip, and he was wary, pushing his duster back behind the holsters and turning his horse side on.
The second man was a Mexican by the look of him, swarthy and heavily moustachioed with the long points of his lip-brush dangling down to his collar. A bandoleer of shotgun shells crossed his chest, and there was a shotgun and a Winchester in the two long sleeves at the front of his saddle.
“Good day to you,” the man on the rock spoke, tipping his hat slightly. The clipped and superior tones of a clear British accent making him seem even more alien and outlandish in such a setting.
“Jesuscristo, I never heard someone talk like that,” exclaimed the Mexican, laughing and leaning forward in his saddle.
“Me neither,” the pistoleer muttered and spat a brown stream of tobacco onto the grass. “Where you from, Mister?”
“Civilisation,” said the man with a smile. “London, England.”
“British, huh? Don’t know that I cotton to redcoats, Mister.”
“Now, now, that was a long time ago. You chaps were killing each other more recently than that.”
The man with the pistols shrugged and cast his glance this way and that before turning back to the gentleman on the rock. “Where’s your horse, hoss?”
“My horse? Oh, it’s not my horse, it’s Shanks’ pony,” the Englishman grinned and tapped his hand against his legs.
“Then you’d be Shanks,” the pistoleer’s horse sidestepped a little closer with a kick at its side, tossing its head but seeming to appreciate the chance to rest.
“Well, I suppose I am. What would be your chaps’ names?”
“I am Xavier…” the Mexican answered before the man with the pistols waved him quiet.
“You not wearing any iron, Mister Shanks?” the pistoleer urged his horse a little closer again, hooves kicking up dust as it pranced in annoyance.
“I didn’t really see the need,” the gentleman shrugged and slipped off the rock to stand, thrusting his hands into the pockets of his waistcoat from which a pair of watch chains depended and swung, gleaming silver in the sun.
“And whut’s in the bag?” the Mexican was staying quiet now, but looking nervous, glancing from Shanks to his friend and back again.
“My tools. I’m a watchmaker, just a hobby, you understand? That and my money,” Shanks smiled and rocked on his heels, quirking an eyebrow as he watched the man’s reaction.
“Money, huh?” The pistoleer’s hand darted and drew his Colt, levelling it at Shanks, eyes narrowed like a hawk stooping for the kill. “Reckon a man as finely dressed as you has less need of his dollars and cents than men like us, down on our luck.”
Shanks kept his hands in his pockets and gently shrugged his shoulders, that supercilious smile never leaving his face. “I dare say you’re right, Sir, but it would still be theft.”
The Mexican was even more nervous now, shifting in his saddle, licking his lips at the confrontation. He could see that Shanks wasn’t perturbed, anxious, not so much as a bead of sweat on his brow. “Jon, I don’t know about this man. Something’s wrong.”
“Shut up, Xavier. Now then, Mr Redcoat, how about we start with those fine watches of yours? I know a man in Waco that’ll pay a fine amount of dollars for Stirling silver.” He thumbed back the hammer on his pistol and renewed his aim, hand as steady as a rock.
“I commend you, Jon, you know your silver. As you will then…”
Shanks dipped his hands deeper into the pockets of his waistcoat and drew them out with blinding speed. Light danced briefly on a pair of silver-plated pocket revolvers, Webleys, attached by the long chains to the buttons of the waistcoat. There was a double boom and a cloud of smoke as they went off together, and the heavy .450 bullets took Jon through his eyes and flung him back from his horse into the dust in a shower of blood.
Xavier sat up, bolt straight in his saddle and stared at the Englishman whose gleaming silvered guns were now aimed with deadly precision at his own face, the hammers already back, he hadn’t even seen him re-cock the gun. “I don’t want any trouble, Mr Shanks. I didn’t want to rob you.”
“Good chap, Xavier. Why don’t you ride along them, hmm? I’m sure you have places to be. Don’t worry about Jon here, I’ll take care of him, or at least the buzzards will.”
Xavier nodded hard, his hat falling back from its head on its ties, and he kicked his horse into life, fleeing down the trail as fast as he could. The fear of god chasing him like the cavalry itself was on his heels.
Shanks watched him go and eased the hammers down on his pistols, pushing them into his pockets and smoothing the line of his suit. Jon’s horse was placidly eating grass now, seemingly glad to have less weight on its back. Shanks approached it gingerly and rifled through the saddlebags. Not a lot of use, jerky, pemmican, a little water, a handful of dollars and thievings that were of no interest to him.
“You’re bloody lucky I didn’t shoot you. Can’t stand horses.” The creature paid him no heed until he slapped it on the flank and sent it running away down the trail in Xavier’s wake.
Jon’s body didn’t have a lot to offer either, just chewing tobacco – a foul habit – and a few more dollars to add to the collection. Shanks left him there, staring blindly up at the sky through two bloody holes, a warning to other would-be thieves. Americans, so uncivilised.
He paced back to the rock and lifted his pack, pushing it back over his shoulder and snatching up his cane with a spinning flourish. It shouldn’t be too far to the next town, if his reckoning was correct. Might even get there by sundown.
Whistling a happy tune, Shanks sauntered on as the buzzards wheeled and landed behind him in a raucous party, fighting over his leavings.
This is the first part of a story that appears in Pulp Nova.
THOCK!
The machete blade bit into the succulent green of the tree and stuck fast. White rubbery goop seeped out of the trunk and gummed around the blade, already sticky. Every time he cut, Bernard had to stop, wipe the goo from the blade and start over. The trees here were too big, too dense, to cut through, and the undergrowth was all this rubbery tangle. The stuff smelled like a mix of school glue and semen, which really wasn’t that pleasant at all.
He stopped and rubbed the gluey mix from the blade, turning to look to the rest of his team. Christ was a local doctor and bore the joke-making of his name with remarkable stoicism. He wasn’t that good at cutting through the undergrowth, but with all these blades flying about, you wanted someone who was a dab hand with a needle. Divine, French-educated, Congolese by birth, was a scientist like him. Her shock of dark, curly hair was yanked back into a tight braid. She was strong, drenched with sweat as she clove away at the undergrowth with the rest of them. Ray and Fred, their guards, all he’d gotten out of them were their first names. They didn’t deign to help chop, but that wasn’t their job. They scanned the dense jungle – even though they couldn’t see very far at all, AK-47s slung back over their shoulders.
Fred had his boots off, hung around his neck, and walked barefoot over fallen tree trunks and deep leaf litter. Bernard looked down at the mass of crawling insects, thorns and other creatures around his boots and shook his head. You wouldn’t catch him doing that. Far too many scorpions, centipedes, ants, snakes and other stinging, venomous, poisonous creatures waiting for a nice chunk of prime Belgian flesh.
“Mr Vandenbosch!” Divine’s heavily accented French called from the side of the little trail they’d been cutting. It was damn slow going.
“Yes, Miss Kayembe?” he stopped and turned, wiping his brow; the sweat never stopped flowing down into his eyes.
“I think I’ve found one of the plants that were in the report,” she said, hunkered down now, the hacking replaced by a gentle parting of the foliage.
Bernard carefully paced over to her, leaving the Doctor to make what little headway he could by himself against the combative plant life. There, between Divine’s calloused fingers, was a tiny little flower, four-petalled, delicate, but the scent was strong. Just as had been described. This was why he was here: the area was relatively unexplored, and the potential for new pharmaceuticals synthesised from the plant life of these regions was enormous.
“There’s another one…” Divine parted the rubbery undergrowth, and there was a treasure-house of the little flowers, their antiseptic smell suddenly making the jungle smell like a doctor’s waiting room.
“So many… I wonder why nothing’s eating them.” Bernard reached back into his pack and fished out a sample jar and a trowel, stabbing it into the dirt to work out one of the little white jewels and its roots.
“We’re in the right place at least!” Divine smiled a broad white smile and held back the plants as Bernard dug around the roots, brushing aside the dried husks of dead insects to reach the loamy soil beneath.
A bare foot, thick with rough skin, appeared next to him as he dug, and he looked up, blinking to Fred, standing over him and sucking his teeth. “It’s getting dark quick, Mr Vandenbosch. We need to find a place to make camp.”
Bernard nodded and lifted the plant into its container, screwing on the lid. He turned to Divine as she stood, knees cracking as she did so. “Make a note of the location on the GPS so we can get back here at first light. I’m going to want a few more samples.”
Divine nodded and took her tablet out of her cargo shorts. She tapped at it with the stylus and then abruptly stopped, giving a strange and sudden grunt. Bernard stood, immediately, staring at her as she dropped her tablet and lifted her hand to her chest. A scarlet stain was spreading across her vest, soaking through the fabric. Her knees began to buckle, and she tried to form a word, blood trickling from her lips, before she was yanked back and up, arms and legs thrown forward, her body hauled out of sight into the leaves and the trees.
“Merde!” Fred and Ray unslung their guns and worked the bolts. There was a whooshing sound and Bernard saw a golden blade, like a broad spear tip, pierce Christ’s head, emerging through his mouth in a shower of gore and then yanking back, taking his head off above his mandible and spraying gore over the leaves as his body fell back.
The rattle of the AKs was deafening, even if he was used to the sounds of battle, and Bernard hunkered low, arms over his head against the sound as Fred and Ray opened fire, blind, into the jungle around them. The stink of gunsmoke took over now, and hot brass fell all around him like rain, bullets tearing up the jungle, blowing red-hot splinters of fractured wood into the air.
It was brief and deafening, over as quickly as it started, spent magazines dropped in their haste to reload, slamming them home and knocking them to shake the bullets into place.
“Stay down, Mr Vandenbosch,” Fred half crouched to press a hand against Bernard’s shoulder and then crept, hunched over, a metre – perhaps two – down the trail.
Bernard scrambled for his machete – better than nothing – he couldn’t root in his pack, there was too much going on. “Klootzaks…” he hissed under his breath, scrabbling, putting his back to a tree trunk for cover.
There was a single shot from Ray, a bright flare against the darkening jungle and then he too was gone, pulled into the undergrowth with barely a chance to scream. There was only Fred left. Barefoot Fred, creeping down the trail, eyes to the canopy, big and white and alert.
Fred didn’t see it, though. The giant shadow, more ape than man. Sleek and bald and dark as night, naked as a newborn. Bernard only saw it because of the golden gleam of its spear in the waning light. It was walking down the side of one of the great trees, long toes wrapped around the trunk, silent for something seven feet tall. Bernard tried to open his mouth, tried to shout, to scream, but nothing would come. The great black shadow dropped silently down behind Fred and, with one massive hand, twisted his head on his shoulders until the blank white eyes were staring back at Bernard.
“Merde!” Bernard found his voice now, scrambling for his pack, tearing it open as more of the shadows slipped down from the trees, hulking brutes, muscled and sleek as leopards, fanged teeth showing in toothy grins. “What the fuck are you?”
They stepped closer, closer, loosening those strange short spears in their hands, each attached to a golden chain, wrapped around their bulging forearms. This was it. He was going to die. He couldn’t get his gun out in time. It was wedged beneath the laptop, the sample pots, all the useless paraphernalia of science. He was dead, dead, dead.
“IAIAIAIAIAIAIAIAIA!” A banshee scream came out of the jungle and made itself heard, even through the deafness from the gunshots. A white streak came rocketing out of the dense jungle and smashed into one of the great black giants, carrying it over to the ground with sheer momentum. There was a flash of gold and a fount of blood, and only then would his eyes focus.
Straddling one of the dead giants was a girl, white as a ghost, naked as her enemy, her hair a shock of gleaming white dreadlocks. She was unadorned save for a belt and necklace of gold, and now her white body was smeared with red blood that matched the feral gleam of her eyes. She stood on the fallen giant and screamed at its brothers that same deafening ululation. “IAIAIIAIAIAIAIA!”
The giant shadows took a step back, and one swung up its spear, hurling it with terrible might towards the wiry girl. She moved like a snake, twisted and snatched the spear by its haft, yanking it forward with such brutal force that the chain stripped the skin from the giant’s forearms and sent it screaming and bubbling to its knees with pain.
The last turned and ran. It leapt into the trees with unnatural speed, hands and feet gripping together, propelling it into the deepening dark and the thick of the wilderness away from the ghost that had killed its fellows.
The red and white demon girl stepped down from the body and casually stabbed the whimpering, kneeling giant through the top of his skull with her curved golden dagger. Yanking it free with the same casual ease and leaving the body to fall into the rotting loam. The blade went away, clinging to her belt as she slunk with cat-like, careful grace and crouched before Bernard, offering him her bloodied hand.
He gladly took her hand and let her lift him to his feet. She was as tall as him, a six-foot Amazon of a girl, broad-hipped, red-eyed, flat of nose with a sumptuous mouth that formed no words. She simply led him, silently, by the hand, and he went, gladly.
Postmortem Studios 
