Awesome Tales #3: Fantomas: Reign of Terror

By R. Allen Leider

Fantômas! His name sends icy shivers down the stalwart spines of French authorities. Fantômas! He deals in death and mayhem for high stakes profit! No stakes are higher than world freedom, so the shadowy criminal offers to combat the German war machine. When Fantômas makes an offer, the contract is signed in blood!
Plus:
"Taxi to Hell" by Lee Richards — Step on it! How often do cab drivers hear that snarled command? This cabbie steps on it, alright — steps on love and hate, stomps on heart and lungs, and grinds out the last spark of life!
"The Emerald Eye" by KT Pinto, you'll meet Raphael Jones, a new hardboiled P.I.! He rolls his eyes over a new client and heeds her bidding, for three times his normal rate — until he’s dealing with forces beyond mortal comprehension!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bold Venture Press
• Release date: Jun 25, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463345054

R. Allen Leider

Film reviewer/screenwriter R. Allen Leider began his career in 1970 at CBS news as copy boy for The Walter Cronkite News. In 1973, he became features writer for The Monster Times and went on to work at Show, Celebrity and Glitter magazines and other international publications. In 1984, he created the original story and screenplay for The Oracle (1985), and hosted his own radio show, Cinemascene, on WWFM for five years.He has contributed many short stories for the anthologies, Dark Furies, Hear Them Roar, Crypto-Critters I, Bad Ass Faeries I, and Barbarians at the Jumpgate and The Walrii Project. In 2004, he was co-writer of The Field Guide to Monsters and The Field Guide to Aliens. Presently, he writes and edits the online Black Cat Review. He edits Awesome Tales, a pulp-fiction mini-magazine, and the Wicca Girl-based anthologies The Hellfire Lounge.The first outline for the Wicca Girl project was written in 1961 in high school English class. His photojournalistic work has been syndicated worldwide. He lives in Manhattan with wife Barbara, a professional photographer, and an assortment of Egyptian feline gods.

Book preview

Awesome Tales

#3: Fantômas: Reign of Terror

R. Allen Leider, editor

Stories by R. Allen Leider, Lee Richards, KT Pinto

Bold Venture Press

Awesome Tales

TM & Copyright © 2019 Black Cat Media. All Rights Reserved.

Published by Bold Venture Press

Fantômas: Reign of Terror © 2019 R. Allen Leider. All Rights Reserved.

Taxi to Hell! © 2019 Lee Richards. All Rights Reserved.

The Emerald Eye © 2019 KT Pinto. All Rights Reserved.

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Contents

Awesome Words by R. Allen Leider (editorial)

Fantômas: Reign of Terror by R. Allen Leider (Part 1)

Taxi to Hell! by Lee Richards

The Emerald Eye by KT Pinto (A Raphael Jones mystery)

About Awesome Tales

About the Authors

About the editor

Bold Venture Press

Awesome Words

Who is Fantômas?

editorial by R. Allen Leider

Fantômas is the Lord of Terror, the Genius of Evil, the arch-criminal anti-hero of a series of more than 32 pre-WWI French thrillers written by Pierre Souvestre and Marcel Allain. He carries out the most appalling crimes—by today’s standards, outright acts of terrorism. Substituting sulfuric acid in perfume dispensers at a Parisian department store, for instance, and releasing plague-infested rats on an ocean liner.

Fantômas is the master of a thousand disguises and the leader of a vast army of apaches (street thugs). Fantômas is anyone and no one, everywhere and nowhere. Fantômas’s crimes are scenes of sublime horror and, much to the police’ consternation, he escapes justice every time.

Inspector Juve is Fantômas’s nemesis. He carries out a lonely crusade against a menace the extent of which he only suspects. Juve’s Fantômas monomania leads his superiors to question his sanity.

Jérôme Fandor, a journalist for the daily newspaper La Capitale, is Juve’s ally in the war on the arch criminal—while carrying on a tenuous romance with Hélène, opium-smoking, daughter of Fantômas.

In this issue, Fantômas returns with a vengeance, literally, as he targets the German war machine of World War II!

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Fantômas: Reign of Terror

Part 1

By R, Allen Leider

Jackboots marching on the Champs Elysees! I should have died before I saw this, Inspector Juve thought to himself as he viewed the military parade in the street below his office window. These will be dark days for France, indeed. Goosesteps under the Arc de Triomphe! Crazy! Juve stepped back and drew the curtains over the window as if to deny the harsh reality of World War Two. The Germans had occupied the country for six months and the restrictions put on Juve’s office were almost unbearable. It was as if half the Nazis’ efforts were exclusively aimed at surveillance of the French police, the surete, which made it hard for them to concentrate on their purpose – catching domestic criminals. Then, there was the constant interference from the Gestapo, especially General Gustav Von Gromm, named Governor of Paris by Der Fuehrer himself. Von Gromm was a paranoid man who saw subversion and conspiracy around every corner and knew the eye of the high command was on him 24 hours a day.

On this day, Juve had planned a lunch with his old friend Jérôme Fandor, the journalist for La Capitale, who likewise, had many restrictions placed on his work. As Juve strolled down the Rue Madeleine to his favorite bistro Le Chat Blanc, he was aware of eyes following him, people walking with their heads down, machine gun-armed soldiers where smiling gendarmes used to stand, and an all-over atmosphere of sheer dread that had replaced the traditional gaiety of Paris life.

I don’t know how much more of this I can stand, Fandor, Juve moaned in a low voice, fearing that the waiter might be a Nazi snitch. I miss the old days of arresting confidence tricksters, domestic criminals and chasing Fantomas.

Fandor scratched his head and sipped his coffee. You know Juve, he said, I haven’t been able to write a real news story for the paper since the Germans arrived. I work on a story for hours and now have to send it into the censor before it goes to the editor. Then, it comes back smeared with blue ink. Cut, cut, cut, rewrite, rewrite. Two thousand words of professional journalism hacked down to 750 words of propaganda or soft news by an idiot of a man who can’t achieve cursive writing. He prints only and scrawls like a child. Herr Skizzemann, what an asshole!! How did he get that job? He must be someone’s relative in the Reichstag. What I wouldn’t give to bang out ten thousand words about Fantomas’ latest murder spree.

Suddenly, Juve’s face lit up like in the pre-war days when he pursued the masked madman of a thousand faces across the country and, sometimes, to distant parts of Europe. Fandor was surprised by his friend’s instant change of attitude.

What are you up to? What are you thinking?

What if Fantomas took on the Nazis? What if the police department, the French government gave him amnesty and a truce between us if he promised to concentrate his entire effort on them? Now, that’s a nightmare I would enjoy. The master of sadism, cruelty and a true crime lord and his minions set loose on the Master Race. I’d laugh out loud now, but I am sure it would attract the attention of one of our observers, Juve whispered as he looked around at the two soldiers gobbling their croquet monsieur sandwiches like slobs and wiping their mouths on their sleeves. Fantomas would make the underground Resistance look like unruly children.

How could you do this?

On the sly, of course, in secret. The Nazis have representatives in every department in the force. I would have to approach my superiors at a social function. Here Juve paused to think for a moment. Fandor, could you arrange a small ‘birthday party’ for me at your home? Just invite the Chief Inspector, a few of the lower functional government types and their wives as a cover for our little meeting. They are not considered dangerous subversives yet and would not be suspected of anything if they congregated at a social function. I would ask a higher government official, but he would be watched and followed.

When do you want to do this?

"Next week, Wednesday would be