Déjà vu, Mr. Trump

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Indiana Horror Review 2016

Available now at Amazon.com

Not One of Us Issue #56

Contents:

The Drowned Carnival, by Mat Joiner
Ghost Ships of the Middlesex Canal (poem), by Sonya Taaffe
Now That Sarah Is Gone, by Tim L. Williams
The Vigilant (poem), by Lynette Mejía
Eat, Pray, Wait, by David Stevens
God’s Bones, by Jennifer Crow
Wraith (poem), by Erik Amundsen
Lamp Beside the Golden Door (poem), by Beth Cato
Rusalka (poem), by Sandi Leibowitz
In a Room, by Nicole Tanquary
Playing the Reds (poem), by Herb Kauderer
Team Orderly Mars, by David Ebenbach
The Monster in the Maze (poem), by Alexandra Seidel
When the Stones Hungered for Kin, by Patricia Russo
The Box (poem), by Holly Day
Art: John Stanton*

From Wikipedia:

Not One Of Us is a small press horror and science fiction magazine published in Massachusetts, USA, four times a year. The first issue appeared in October 1986. The theme is "people or things out of place in their surroundings": outsiders, social misfits, aliens in the science-fictional sense—anyone excluded from society for whatever the reason. The magazine publishes stories and poems that explore otherness from every possible angle.

* Two more shots snaked from one of my go-to places for nature photography.

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Soal Man

Soal Man

by Murphy Edwards

 

The justice system in the city of Sachter is broken.  Teenage punks with big guns, small minds, and no ambition roam about the darkest neighborhoods in search of prey.  They fuel their anger with codeine-soaked joints and cheap liquor and finance their habits through theft, extortion, arson, and murder. Enter Romeo Soal, a loner who has vowed to give his ravaged city a jump-start.  Working just outside the crumbling edges of the legal system, Soal takes on child molesters, dope dealers, deadbeat dads, and repeat offenders who have slithered through the cracks in the courthouse steps.  Soal does his best to help those in need, but when P. Anderton Hillis, a wealthy businessman, asks him to murder his wife, Soal flatly refuses.  Hillis is not accustomed to being told “no,” and is determined to do anything to get his way, including kidnapping Soal’s best friend, Nick Finch.  While trying to rescue Finch, Soal must endure beatings, avoid police, and stop an arsonist who has turned pyromania into an art form, all while struggling with his infatuation for Hillis’ personal secretary.


Cover art/design by John Stanton

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Unwelcome

        

 "Fire and Ice"

Last Saturday, I’d planned to take Flo over to one of our favorite nature sites and shoot some new photos of the area, with a 950nm IR filter. For some reason, I felt a little “off” about going there at this time, so I came up with a different plan. Another one of our nature photography haunts had some unusual additions in the past couple of years – a yurt of sorts, and some other hand-built wooden shelters, along with a wooden box on a post, for the sharing of books. Earlier this year, I’d ordered a used book Flo wanted, but the bookstore shipped the wrong one, a duplicate of one she had – they said we could keep it. I thought of dropping that one off at the book box, then we could wander around and look for more photo ops.

At the first stoplight near our house, we were blocked from turning left for an escorted funeral cortege – in itself, not an unusual site, but I’d never seen one pass through this intersection in more than fifty years. It made me feel a bit more of that “off” feeling. We waited for another light, then went on our way.

As I turned left into the parking lot that backs up to the yurt, the pickup in front of us turned right, turned around in the parking lot, crossed back, and took up a position where the driver could follow what we were doing. He was far enough away to cause no concern, but I kept an eye on him while he feigned not watching us.

The yurt, the other wooden constructs, and the book box had all been removed since I’d photographed them last September. Some music was blaring nearby, though I couldn’t make out where from exactly. Just past where the yurt had been, down the hill toward the creek, is where I shot the “Fire and Ice” canvas print featured in an art show last fall. I took a few photos, then decided to move on to one of our other areas. As we headed to our car, the fellow in the pickup apparently lost interest and left. I drove about a city block’s worth, just across the parking lot, heading for a highway overpass, where I’d shot some photos of Flo she used for her blog.

I parked in front of the dialysis center where I took my mother for several years. Strolled over to the side of the building, next to the drop-off overhang where I’d parked and helped her into her wheelchair dozens of times. I started taking photos of the cattails on the embankment next to the driveway, when a female cop who had been chatting with patients in front of the dialysis center came running up to me – “Sir – SIR! May I help you!” She then ran us off. I was a bit sarcastic, asking her if the cattails were now classified secrets.

Walking on a public parking lot, snapping photos of cattails and trees. I didn’t dare tell her I was shooting infrared.

One of my go-to places to wander and take nature photos, for 39 years, since before any development of the area… I’d never been kicked out of there before.

It would take me a while to count up the photos I’ve had published, taken in various corners of this odd-shaped, urban-encircled woods. A few, off the top of my head – a shot of the railroad bridge accompanies a story of mine in Static Movement. The shot Flo took of me that I use on my Amazon Author’s Page, is from these woods. One of Flo dressed as a gypsy, an illustration for an e-Zine. The above-mentioned yurt is in an issue of Not One of Us. A book cover I designed a few years ago is cut from a panorama I took in the snow, in another section. The following blog is also about these woods:

Time in a Bottle

An infrared shot from 2001 earned an Honorable Mention ribbon at the Indiana State Fair:

The Long Road Home

A friend told me some strange stories about these woods, and took me over for a visit, nearly forty years ago. It was a bit of an oddity, an expanse of field and heavily wooded forest, undeveloped, completely surrounded by urban and suburban sprawl. One could still see decaying telegraph poles paralleling the railroad tracks which bisected the woods, and a row of high-tension towers cut through the field on the opposite side. Still, the rest of the woods remained untouched, almost primeval. The development of this shopping area took years to remove ancient wood, re-sculpt the land, and dredge the creek. In a few short years, business after business there failed or abandoned the region. A “Cheddars” restaurant drew in business for a couple of years, before it suddenly burned to the ground – and what remains looks eerily ancient.

Still, enough of the woods remain to retain some of the feel the land once had, and nature has returned the gouged and dredged creek to a state almost matching what it was before.

To feel unwelcome there, after all these years, is unsettling…

Cattails

 

Indy 500 Crowd Shots May 29, 2016

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WTF did you say?

(My caption - she was giving him some lip.)

 

 

'merica.

 

 

Cheezcake

 

 

Heading home.

Not One of Us #55

Contents:

A Drizzle Still Counts As Rain, by Patricia Russo
The Nihilist’s Prayer (poem), by Laura Sloan Patterson
The Choices of Foxes, by Sonya Taaffe
Started Small (poem), by David Kopaska-Merkel
The Oracle Sings a Torch Song, by Gillian Daniels
Daughter of Oak and Ash (poem), by Deborah Guzzi
A Voice Old (poem), by K.S. Hardy
The Water Cure, by Alexander Leger-Small
The Daughter Who Left (poem), by Holly Day

Art: John Stanton

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Surreal Nightmares

Authors for Surreal Nightmares

J.C.Burkart
Ron Richmond
Mathias Jansson
Aaron Vlek
William Cook
A. Henry Keene
Stephen McQuiggan
A. Henry Keene and James Ward Kirk
Jaap Boekestein
Donald Armfield
Eric LaRocca
Sheldon Woodbury
Essel Pratt
Robert Holt
Jake Walters
Tom Howard
Calvin Demmer
Kyle Rader
Alex S. Johnson
Ron Richmond

Cover by John Stanton

Another shot...

 

 



And, a little side-story from that shoot.


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A Not One of Us Special Publication

Contents:

Do You Know What Happened, by Patricia Russo
Sarcophagus of Healing (poem), by John Philip Johnson
Harlequin and Bird, by Mat Joiner
Anybody That Looked Like That (poem), by Sonya Taaffe
The Red Round Eye of War, by Erik Amundsen
Sister Agnes Tells About the Crocodile (poem), by Laura Sloan Patterson
M, by Russell Hemmell
The Skin Changer (poem), by Alexandra Seidel
Underdown (poem), by Neal Wilgus
Cars, by Joe Scott
Wallpaper (poem), by Michelle Watters
Art: John Stanton

Order a copy or subscription directly from Not One of Us