LampLight: Volume 2 Issue 3

By Jacob Haddon

March 2014

Our featured artist is Mary SanGiovanni. She brings to us a new story entitled “The Mime”. Life has gotten more interesting for Jonathan Crowely in Part 3 of James A Moore’s serial novella, the Devoted. J.F. Gonzalez talks about Weird tales, both its history and influences in Shadows from the Attic. We have fiction from doung jai, Tim W Boiteau, Alethea Eason and Lucy A Snyder.

Featured Artist Mary SanGiovanni
Bram Stoker Award winning writer, Mary SanGiovanni brings a new story, “The Mime,” to Lamplight. She talks with us about writing, her works and life in New Jersey inspires her.

Serial Novella, James A Moore
The Devoted, Part Three: Crossfire. Jonathan Crowely has found himself in the middle of a mess, which is where he likes to be. When his companion steps into a local dispute, things get interesting for both of them.

Shadows in the Attic, J.F. Gonzalez.
Weird Tales and its influence, Weird-Menace, Early Horror Movies and Radio Shows. In this installment, J.F. Gonzalez takes you through the history of Weird Tales, the writers who were found in its pages, and the pulps that were competition at the time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Apokrupha LLC
• Release date: Mar 17, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311675521

Book preview

LampLight

A Quarterly Magazine of Dark Fiction

Volume 2

Issue 3

March 2014

Smashwords Edition

Published by Apokrupha

Jacob Haddon, Editor

Katie Winter, Assistant Editor

Benjamin Staisloff, Editor’s Assistant

Paula Snyder, Cover and Masthead Design

All stories copyright respective author, 2014

ISSN: 2169-2122

lamplightmagazine.com

apokrupha.com

Table of Contents

Featured Artist - Mary SanGiovanni

The Mime

Interview with Jeff Heimbuch

Fiction

What Remains - doung jai

The Blue Hour - Tim W. Boiteau

The Boys From Burnell - Alethea Eason

Through Thy Bounty - Lucy A. Snyder

Serial Novella - James A Moore

The Devoted - Part 3: Crossfire

Shadows From the Attic - J. F. Gonzalez

Weird Tales and its influence, Weird-Menace, Early Horror Movies and Radio Shows

LampLight Classics

The Night Wire - H. F. Arnold

Writer Bios

Subscriptions Submissions and Comments

The Mime

Mary SanGiovanni

The first time Seth heard about his friend Carl's problem with the mime was over beers at the Olde Mill Tavern. Seth hadn't wanted to go; it was early February, when New Jersey hacked up the worst of its icy weather from the raw depths of its throat. In fact, it was the kind of weather that inspired guys like Seth to nothing more active than sweat pants and propped up feet in oversized socks, Xbox games and a six-pack of Coors. Carl had sounded desperate on the phone, though, rasping his insistence in terse whispers that they go somewhere, anywhere, as long as it wasn't nearby, because Carl needed to talk to him. So Seth had acquiesced, putting aside free beers for $5 ones and sweat pants for a shower and jeans.

Seth was just grabbing his keys and his wallet when Carl texted from the car to come down and meet him.

R U going 2 tell me what's going on? Seth texted back. It wasn't like Carl to be so secretive, or to sound so...off. It had been nagging at Seth the entire time he'd been getting ready. Carl had a tendency to talk a lot when he was agitated, especially when it had to do with a girl or money, things which most often excited such a state in him. His phone call hadn't been like that, though. He'd barely said more than a few words, and those he'd delivered quickly and quietly. No...he had sounded scared, like someone had been in the room with him, and he had been trying to be careful not to let his words be heard. And Seth couldn't think of a single time Carl had ever sounded like that. He never seemed scared of anything.

Carl's response was curt: Just come down. Hurry.

Seth met him down in the street, slipping into the car as his friend cast quick, suspicious stares along the dark street. Seth found himself peering into shadowed alleys and in-spaces as well, unsure what he was looking for. When he realized the futility of what he was doing, he frowned, brushing off the shivers that stippled his skin beneath his jacket. So dude, you gonna tell me what's going on or what?

Not here, Carl said, licking dry lips as he pulled away from the curb. He spoke little and answered even less. Carl drove them out of town, down miles of charcoal highway and miles more of wooded road. The tension in the car made Seth feel nettled. The darkness around them seemed to stretch ominously out and around the car, isolating them in its center, watching for a chance to swoop suffocatingly in. Seth felt uneasy and vaguely threatened and couldn't help the shiver of annoyance that this was somehow Carl's fault.

Eventually, the car pulled off what supposedly passed for a main road and into a parking lot. Before them, a long wooden building supported a glowing neon sign which read OLDE MILL TAVERN. Seth shrugged; beer was beer, he supposed, and if Carl felt safer at some dive bar in the middle of nowhere that Seth had never heard of, that was fine with him. They got out, and Carl strode ahead of him, his gaze darting like a hunted animal to various ink-black points in the surrounding woods. It wasn't until they had settled onto worn wooden stools inside and each ordered a beer that Carl finally said, I'm being followed.

What? By who?

I don't know who it is. Carl glanced over his shoulder toward the door.

Well, how do you know he's following you?

Their beers came, and Carl waited to answer until the bartender moved away.

Because...it knows where to find me, always. It knows where I live, where I work. It's done things—to me, specifically to me. It... Carl's voice dropped to a whisper. It wants to hurt me. I think it wants to kill me.

Seth hovered between outright laughter and concern. You...oh come on, man. You're kidding me, right? Is this like when Lucy was still following you around, leaving her thong in your mailbox and shit? He tried to laugh, but it fell flat when it got no reaction from his friend. Worse, Carl looked at him, and if Seth hadn't known better, he would have thought his friend's eyes were shining with tears. Seth couldn't dispute the abject terror in them.

So, not like Lucy, then.

Okay, Seth said, absently picking at the label on his beer bottle, what does this person look like?

Carl sighed. It's...hard to explain. Uh, white face, he gestured at his own face vaguely.

A white guy?

No, like face paint. Black eyes and lips. Black and white striped clothes. White gloves.

Like, what, a clown? A goth clown?

Like a mime, Carl said, exasperated, and took a sip of his beer.

Seth considered this for a minute, that crazy conflicting urge to both laugh and shudder keeping any response he could think of in check. Stalked by a mime? Did Carl realize how that sounded? If he had dragged them out into the middle of nowhere on a night colder than a witch's tit just to set up some dumb-ass joke....

Except that it wasn't, and Seth knew that. Carl could be funny, sure, but he lacked the creativity and the patience to execute a practical joke like that. And Carl wasn't really smooth enough that he could fake that look in his eye, or that waver in his voice....

Still unsure where this was going, Seth continued. So, you think you're being stalked.

Carl's tongue darted out to lick his dry lips as he cast furtive glances around the bar. Yeah.

By some guy dressed up as a mime?

No. Carl looked pensive. No, I don't think so.

Seth shook his head. You're losing me, bro.

Carl grabbed his arm with surprising ferocity. Look, it's not just some guy. Regular people can't—they can't just show up and disappear like it does. They can't make things happen out of thin air. They can't...they don't –

Okay, dude, calm down. Slow down, okay? I'm trying to understand here.

Carl nodded, took a deep breath and gulped his beer. Okay. Yeah, okay. He took another gulp of beer. It started about a month ago. At least, that's when I first began to notice it. You know that old theater on Coughlin Boulevard? The one that's all boarded up?

Seth nodded. The Dionysus. Yeah.

The place had become something of local legend around where they lived. Seth had even done a high school history report on it. It had been built in the early 1800's at the edge of town as a forum for the most eccentric of the wealthy elite, a revenue generator for a population financially excluded from its use. History told of minstrels, pantomimes and burlesques as well as the wildest avant guarde shows of the day being performed there in limited, semi-secret runs—plays like Athalie, Le Barbier de Seville, The Cry of the Star Children, A Doll's House, The King in Yellow, and Spring Awakening.

It was not a particularly well-loved place outside of its small, feverishly devoted circle of attendees. Townsfolk's reactions to the place ranged from quiet distaste to bone-deep abhorrance to superstitious fear, so no one was much surprised or concerned when, under mysterious circumstances, the place caught fire in 1916. It had sustained serious damage but strangely, only to its exterior. Still, it took about five years for fringe supporter groups to get the town to completely rebuild the theater. Afterward, it sat mostly unused, its novelty having faded with its years of inaccessibility and the short attention spans of the rich and easily bored, who had moved on to other scandalous entertainments. It enjoyed a second heyday in the 1940's and '50s, when it became open to the general public; it inspired new plays, poetry slams, local author readings, and other experimental performances that were in keeping with the theater's original purpose. Even a movie screen was added, the films, of course, being of the same rare and almost taboo quality of the plays that had preceded it. Ultimately, there was a scandal involving a teenage cult who had been using the theater as a church of sorts—there had been a murder/suicide pact amidst a miasma of ugly rumors about the cult's practices. The place closed down for good in 1982, and it had been abandoned ever since. However, since it was a historical landmark, it was kept up by the historical society; they had prevented it from being torn down and didn't mind feeding the local legend about it being haunted if that generated public interest in future paid tours of the old place.

Seth sipped at his beer and added, I think the police found some dead vagrant in there a few weeks back. I saw something about it online.

Yeah, well, that's not surprising. That place.... Carl's voice