JEREMY ROBERT JOHNSON
Also by Philip Fracassi
Behold the Void
Sacculina
Shiloh
Commodore
Copyright 2021 by Philip Fracassi.
ISBN: 978-1-59021-719-1
Front Cover Art by Francois Vaillancourt
Cover and Interior Design by Inkspiral Design
Author Photograph Art by Max Stark
Published by Lethe Press
All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the authors’ imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
“Ateuchus” © 2018, first published in Dark Discoveries #38 / “Death, My Old Friend” © 2016, first published in Fragile Dreams (JournalStone) / “Fragile Dreams” © 2016, first published as standalone novella (JournalStone) / “Harvest” © 2021, original to this collection / “ID” © 2017, first published in Walk on the Weird Side (LASC Press) / “Soda Jerk” © 2018, first published in Shiloh (Lovecraft eZine) / “Symphony” © 2017, first published in The Demons of King Solomon (JournalStone) /
“The Wheel” © 2021, original to the collection
For Laird Barron
“...there is a certain place in any discussion of any one
thing in existence where knowledge ends and the
Great Vacuum extends on out into infinity.”
Ray Bradbury
INTRODUCTION
JOSH MALERMAN
THE SCARIEST HORROR story is the one told by a stranger on the front porch of a house party, plastic cup in hand, the two of you crossing paths circumstantially, both out to get some air, the music loud inside. He asks what you do. For people like me and Philip Fracassi, the subject of horror stories is never more than a few exchanged pleasantries away. But even if you don’t live in the genre, the subject comes up. Often, the stranger tells you his ghost story. It’s never more than a few sentences. He was gathering laundry from the basement. Saw his dead aunt peer around the furnace. She winked at him.
You say wow.
He says yeah.
Then he’s off, back inside, leaving you alone to fill in the gaps.
