Peculiar Situations

By Megan Engelhardt

A whisper in the dark...how peculiar!
A hunting expedition gone wrong...astonishing!
A mysterious woman sealed in an ancient tomb...by Jove!
A pair of shoes at a crossroads...have you ever seen such a thing?

These preposterous journeys take the reader from the sands of Egypt to a small Southern town, deep into a mine in the Wild West and down a river of immortality in Africa.The world is full of strangeness. Megan Engelhardt brings you four of the darkest, funniest, most peculiar situations of them all.

Stories first appeared in The Scroll of Anubis (Library of the Living Dead Press), Zombie Kong (Books of the Dead Press), Necrotic Tissue (Stygian Publications) and The Old Weird South (QW Publications).

• Language: English
• Publisher: Megan Engelhardt
• Release date: Mar 3, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310873263

Book preview

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Devil's Down

First published in Necrotic Tissue #12, 2010

© Megan Engelhardt, 2010

The Ape That Would Not Die!

First published in Zombie Kong, 2012 as The Beast That Would Not Die!

© Megan Engelhardt, 2012

The Baron and the Cat

First appeared in The Scroll of Anubis, 2010

© Megan Engelhardt, 2010

A True Story About the Devil and Jamie's Shoes

First appeared in The Old Weird South, 2012

© Megan Engelhardt, 2012

Cover art by Amanda C. Davis, 2014

Cover elements courtesy of oldbookillustrations.com

Contents

Devil's Down

The Ape That Would Not Die!

The Baron and the Cat

A True Story About the Devil and Jamie's Shoes

**

About the Author

More by Megan Engelhardt

Devil's Down

Old Charlie here has got quite a good yarn, and damned if I don't half believe it. But I reckon I've got one that can top him, flying lizard beasts and all.

Now, I've been around some time, and I've seen things–awful things–things that would make you run back East to your sweet momma. But of all those things, it's the town of Devil's Down that still wakes me up at night with the cold sweats and the shakes.

This was long ago, when I was younger and my poor dead Sally wasn't yet dead, nor yet mine. Gold was the fever on every man's brain, and I was foolish enough to believe along with them that my fortune could be made in the dirt and darkness of the west. I tried my hand at this stream and that mountain, but nothing caught my luck and I drifted awhile, picking up the odd job here or there. I rolled into Devil's Down of a fine dusk one evening, and maybe it was the dying light, or maybe it was the cast of the clouds, but as soon as I laid eyes on the town I felt a shiver go right through me. There was death in that place.

Now, I'm not a stupid man. Back then it was tough going, out West, and you kept all your senses wide open, if you ken what I'm saying. But every town had a little taint of death, and I was tired and yearning for some human company (and something to wet my throat and get me drunk,) and judging from that particular noise only saloons have, Devil's Down promised me both in spades. You don't know how many times I've wished I'd listened to myself, though, and left that thrice damned town to itself.

As soon as I rode in I could see right clear that this was a mining town, and that suited me just fine. All you tall lanky boys are a new breed, you know, specially made for riding horses and running after tumbleweeds and whatnot. But I'm the old stock, Welshman miner through and through. My family's always been at home wallowing in coal dust, and though I've since turned my eyes to the long western sky and these cactus-blasted deserts, I was not opposed to making some quick money with a pickaxe twenty feet below.

It weren't hard to find the mine foreman and liquor him into getting me set up with a job. Miners know how to live and a great deal of merriment went on until two of the old boys went through the window on account of a disagreement over a queen of hearts. Card or lady, didn't matter, since right then the sheriff rolled along and suggested we get ourselves along to bed. I took