Rocket Slide (a short science fiction-horror story)

Photo courtesy of Nels Olsen by way of a Creative Commons license. https://www.flickr.com/people/7776581@N04

INTRODUCTION

The Rocket Slide exists!

It’s a real thing and I stole it directly from a creepy, hidden-away playground in my old neighborhood. Whether it can be used by a vengeful ex-husband to kidnap his children … that’s another matter.

But yes, I had lived in the neighborhood for years without knowing that just down the street, behind a grassy verge that separated two of the more splendid homes from the others, lay a secret park with a secret playground filled with death-dealing rides that would never pass muster on a modern playground.

It was as if the rides had been designed by somebody who wanted children to be hurt. It had all the standard 1960s features – swings, a merry-go-round (which, when spun sufficiently fast, could fling a kid off into another dimension), and a couple of non-standard features.

For instance, there was an odd slide that consisted of a gigantic wedge-shaped piece of metal. It was mounted at a steep angle and to make correct use of it you had to start at the tapered in and, using the edge as a handgrip, drag yourself up to the top, then let go.

During the summer its metal hide would cook the flesh off your bones, and to successfully slide one had to reduce its adhesion – we used very fine sand flung up to the top of the slide. It was one broken arm or leg away from being a helluva lot of fun.

And then there was the Rocket Slide.

I remember it as an enclosed, twisty tunnel of a slide, but it may very well have been a straight slide. The words “Rocket Slide” were emblazoned on the side of the tube, written in flaming italic characters, as if the ride were not stationary but shooting through the atmosphere at the speed of sound. Children would climb a ladder to the top, sit down, and slide through the tunnel to emerge from the bottom, like a screaming, laughing chunk of Pez freshly clicked from the dispenser.

As I watched kids playing on the slide I wondered: What would happen if one of them went into the slide but didn’t come out? And what if an anxious mom looked up the metal throat of the slide and saw nothing but clear air. Just exactly how – and why – would something like that come to pass?

You ever wonder where writers get their ideas? THAT is where writers get their ideas – from everyday life, viewed from a slightly askew angle.

Stephen King made laundry machines evil.

Dennis Etchison made ambulance drivers evil.

And now I, Del Stone Jr., am making playground equipment evil.

I remember working on this story over and over, trying to give it significance larger than the basic idea of a playground slide that ate little kids. The anxious mother and vengeful father came along after I had finished the first version and sent it around to a few places. It finally found a home with Jeffery Thomas’ The End.

Since writing “Rocket Slide” I have never looked at playground equipment the same way.

I mean, seriously. Who knows what’s really inside the Rocket Slide? When was the last time you were inside the Rocket Slide?

Do you have a spouse working on a top-secret government who you recently split up with?

Do yourself a favor.

Keep your kids out of the Rocket Slide.

—

ROCKET SLIDE

The playground did not move, the way a living thing sometimes will not move.

Children dashed along its flanks, butterfly motes of motion flitting across its grassy expanse, from jungles of monkey bars and nodding teeter-totters to the giddy merry-go-round and best of all best, rising above the rain-washed landscape like a metal tower, the Rocket Slide. Children laughed and cried out, whirling and swinging in the delight that is exclusive to children, while mothers filled benches and watched, satisfied in their own ways.

All but one.

Jenny sat, tense, at the edge of the wooden seat, its whitewashed boards resembling teeth that might snap at her if she settled more comfortably into its jaw, and when a certain little girl wandered too close to the swings, Jenny would stand and call, “Amanda! Not behind the swings!” Or if the girl dared to explore the jungle gym and climbed too high, Jenny would shout, “Come down honey! You might fall!”

And for perhaps the third time that afternoon, after they had come out from beneath the bright gazebo when the rain had finished, the mother’s friend reached to her, touched her lightly on the shoulder, as if flesh would convey what words could not, and whispered, “Jen, let her play.” A pause. “You worry too much.”

Jenny thought, No … that’s not true. If you had a child … and an ex-husband … you’d understand. She turned to her friend and said, “I don’t know, Angie. There’s – there’s something – I don’t know. Something different. …” And then she sat, and her unease settled around her like a heavy shroud, locking in a chill.

Angela chuckled. Her voice was light as mist. Her arm slid around Jenny’s shoulder.

“Oh come on, Jen. It’s the playground. You’ve been here a hundred times. What could possibly be different?”

Jenny closed her eyes, opened them. “I don’t know. I’m just worried, I guess.”

What she could not describe was the feeling of being surrounded by hidden, prying eyes, everywhere, eyes that watched her thoughts, the way she perched at the edge of the bench, the nervous intake of breath and her darting gaze, flicking birdlike as she followed her daughter’s movement from one troublesome park peril to the next. She felt a wrongness here. Call it a mother’s intuition. She did not like this park anymore. She’d come her against her better judgment, giving into Angela’s unshakeable insistence that they spend the afternoon here so that Amanda might play and Angela could share the minutia she’d accumulated since they’d last spent an afternoon together. But Jenny didn’t like the park anymore. She didn’t like the swings – swings from which a child might be tossed to the ground – nor did she trust the creaking teeter-totters or the jungle gym or the narcotic whirl of the merry-go-round. Least of all did she trust the Rocket Slide, a tall metal tube wrapped around the steep incline of a slide. They cylinder was painted metallic red and was adorned with rocket fins; the characters R-O-C-K-E-T S-L-I-D-E were exhaust-fire yellow along its sides, around which stars and crescent moons and ringed planets capered. It was too high, Jenny decided, remembering how her heart would crawl into her throat when Amanda used to play on it. A child might take a spill from there and hurt herself. A young girl of five, for instance, who was precious beyond price to a mother who might be watching from too far away.

A young girl she’d fought to keep.

Rocket Slide. Jenny spoke the words to herself. Her lip curled imperceptibly at the dank taste of the syllables.

She watched a boy clamber up the ladder, apelike, to the waiting mouth of the slide, fit himself against the shiny metal tongue and push into its throat, swallowed by moons and stars and yellow rocket flare. She looked away before he could emerge.

“It’s Roger, I’ll bet. You and Roger used to come here every Saturday afternoon – at least until he started the project. A person could set his watch by you and Roger going to the playground. You’re afraid he might show up, aren’t you?” Angela was saying. Jenny didn’t turn, didn’t flinch, and wondered if the lack of reaction was incriminating. Finally, she murmured a simple, “No.” Not Roger. Please, not Roger. Not after what the lawyer told her the last time Roger came, attorneys in tow, ready to claim what he still insisted belonged to him.

No. Well … maybe. A little.

She shook her head and gazed across the park to make sure Amanda was nowhere near the Rocket Slide. She felt watched. An older girl, Amanda’s size, was making her way up the slide, moving with a quickness that suggested expertise in climbing ladders and touching feet-to-clouds from swings and all manner of playground skills.

“So you had the cops on him because he was harassing you. I think any woman in your position would have done the same thing. If it hadn’t been for that Pentagon bigshot running interference, Roger might be in jail now.”

“Yeah,” Jenny mused. Her memories of that sorry episode were bundled into a tidy package she found herself mentally tripping over a hundred times a day.

Roger Clemmons, Phd. The physicist – ”quantum theory of gravity physicist,” he’d correct her, as if he were amplifying a misdelivered introduction. She’d met him at the Caltech admission office. She’d worked there as a clerk, entering schedules and adjustments to the office’s mainframe. He’d dropped in one afternoon to clear up an error in his class time schedule and it had been immediate infatuation … at least on his part, she thought at the time. She considered him old and a bit eccentric, but after three months of effusive, often embarrassing pursuit, she’d given in. They had nothing in common and he’d seemed to like that. But after seven years of marriage, the novelty had worn off. Only Amanda still seemed able to captivate him.

A year after they were married the university had granted his sabbatical. Roger had wheedled and connived – persistence was his other distinctive quality, aside from a quickness to anger – and had gotten himself a grubstake from the dwindling pool of SDI money to pursue an applied research project he’d been kicking around for years, a mysterious project that he would reveal to nobody except, presumably, the agencies that were underwriting the costs.

She knew its name.

Bootleg.

And she knew a little bit more.

Roger would’ve been furious. She never told him about the envelope, the one she found in his coat pocket as she was checking it before sending it off to the cleaners. The envelope was scribbled with hieroglyphics of formulae and notations – maybe he’d been working up a presentation or a report, or maybe he’d had a brainstorm while eating lunch at that greasy spoon he and his grad students inhabited almost every afternoon.

The notes were cryptic: “Effect is localized. Can be g-rated from our end to coordin (garbled) silo, war room. 1 man job. Stable apertures; loss rates acceptable.”

She’d read the notes and then returned the envelope to his pocket, and that night, after Roger came home, she mentioned she was taking his suit to the cleaners.

The next morning, the envelope was gone.

Bootleg.

And when Bootleg was going badly, if something hadn’t worked – she always knew when something hadn’t worked – Roger would rage, his anger inevitably focusing on her attempts to console him, then on her. She could not reveal what she knew about Bootleg – a security breach, as he’d warned her the times she’d asked about his work, could cost him the project and maybe land him in the federal stockade to boot. So she could offer him no encouragement, no solace, nothing beyond the meaningless assurances that he’d eventually discover a way around the problem, whatever it was. But that seemed only to aggravate him, as if he knew he’d never solve the riddle of Bootleg and resented her blind confidence he would.

Finally, she couldn’t stand it anymore. His stormy outbursts, his anger and browbeating. She filed for divorce. The project was going nowhere. Funding was dying on the vine. Roger was consumed by hate – for her, for Bootleg, for just everything.

“Jenny?” Angela asked.

Jenny shook her head. The girl mounted the Rocket Slide, and a silent claxon within Jenny began to gong, No! Don’t do that! Get down from there before – before –

The girl swooshed and disappeared.

“ – devil’s advocate, you know. You wouldn’t think that, would you?” Angela was saying, cautiously. She hesitated, the lines around her mouth tight with an effected frown, and stared deeply into Jenny’s eyes. “Earth to Jenny. Are you listening?”

Jenny blinked. She turned to Angela, blushing, and laughed nervously.

“No – I mean yes. Actually … no. I’m sorry.” She cleared her throat. “I guess I’m kind of out of it today. Something about the playground, something I can’t explain. It gives me the creeps, if you want to know the truth.” She held up an arm, turned it to the bright sun. “Look at me,” and she laughed again, a sound without humor. “I’ve got goosebumps.”

Angela sighed. “It’s just a park, Jen. What could be wrong with a park? It’s not as if there were muggers and perverts hiding in the bushes.”

Jenny smiled at the notion. “It’s nothing like that. I really couldn’t explain it, but I’ve got this feeling, you know, like something isn’t right.”

“I’d call it an overactive imagination.”

Jenny looked back at the slide. Another boy was slowly climbing the ladder. The slide loomed over the park, primeval in its hugeness, a symbol for some dimly remembered horror, making even the trees seem incidental. Light glittered forbiddingly from the firebolt lettering along its neck.

“I know one thing. I do not like that slide. I think it’s too tall; a child could break his neck if he fell off it.”

The boy hoisted himself onto the smooth metal.

Angela sniffed. “Oh come on, Jen. Amanda used to play on it all the time.”

“She could fall climbing – ”

Angela shook her head. “Roger used to help her up the slide. You know, you could do the same thing.”

“I don’t like it,” Jenny insisted. “I’ve been sitting here the past five minutes watching children throw themselves into that thing – like sacrifices to some – some god …” The idea had her trembling, as if her joints had quietly come unpinned. “I don’t like the damned thing – there’s something weird about it.”

“Oh Jenny!” Angela snorted. “You’re getting twitchy in your old age.”

“I mean it.”

The boy hesitated, acted as if he’d changed his mind. The slide sucked him down. Jenny watched, waiting, a sense of foreboding winding itself tightly along the cords in her neck. She closed her eyes and rubbed them, her thoughts again uncovering the stone of memory that was Roger. She shuddered as a familiar, sick fear slithered over her, shadowy and impossible to manage.

Roger. She hadn’t heard from him in a year. Then, something had happened. A breakthrough. Something. Not a word about it in the press, of course, but she knew something had happened. Roger was back, swaggering into her living room like an Errol Flynn gone to rot, all smugness and confidence, as if the secret half of his life had finally resolved itself and he could now devote all his energies to compensating her for the distraction of a divorce.

He wouldn’t hurt her, at least not physically. He was a Phd. There were ways to hurt a person – clever ways – that might suit a quantum theorist’s penchant for elegance.

He wanted Amanda.

After countless confrontations – one that required the intervention of police – they’d gone to court. And when the judge said no, she’d seen that smear of a smirk in Roger’s eyes, that malicious squint that said no damned piece of paper could change his mind, and maybe Jenny had better lock the doors at night and keep a sharp eye, oh, a very sharp eye on Amanda, because sometimes fathers took little girls away from their mothers, no matter what the judge said. Sometimes they did things like that.

She breathed deeply and tried to muster a facade of composure. The bastard. He’d better not try it.

She gazed back out over the park, imagined little eyes scuttling to hide, and whispered, “Maybe it is Roger. Maybe.”

Angela reached around her, pulled her close. She felt hot. “You see, that’s what’s got you so worked up, Jen. Roger.”

She turned Jenny’s face to hers. “And you’ve got to stop worrying about the little shit. There’s nothing he can do; nothing at all. Never again. That was all decided in court, remember? Roger is history. He’s under a permanent restraining order, OK? So forget about him.” She cocked her head, the set of her mouth softening into a smile.

Jenny managed a tepid smile herself and nodded – an almost imperceptible movement of her head – then with greater conviction. The little shit. Her fear began to evaporate, the space it had occupied filling with gratitude. Just a little shit.

She said, “You know what I’d like?”

“What?”

Jenny paused. “I think I’d like a cup of coffee. Or a drink.”

They burst into nervous titters and sank into the maw of the bench, at once comfortable again, the tension gone. Angela whewed and answered, “I think both can be arranged. You know, you really had me going there. All that talk about slide gods. I almost expected Rod Serling to jump out of the bushes at me.”

Jenny smiled sheepishly, started to thank her, stopped, the thought derailed and clicking – my God – the words were a glacier in her throat. A small figure was at the top of the Rocket Slide, its face slack with innocent wonder. My God? A Novocaine deadness settled into the square of Jenny’s back, then faded as she was overcome with dread.

Amanda –

A hammerstroke of horror, cold as lightning is hot, surged in stinging fingers along her nerves and set them to thrumming. At first, she could not move; then she was off the bench, running a cry strangled at the back of her throat. She ran automatically, her eyes locked to the figure atop the slide. And when the girl started to sit down, as if she too would give herself to that gleaming metal throat, Jenny did scream.

Amanda looked up, saw her mother and spoke words that were incomprehensible with the distance. Her face was a question mark, a Did-I-do-something-wrong? expression. Then she stared back down into the Rocket Slide.

Jenny’s heart lurched; she drew in a whistling breath and shouted, “NO! Amanda – NO! Get down from there now!”

She hurtled around the slide, the flaming letters R-O-C-K-E-T S-L arching above her, meteors snaking down from the metal ethers. She grabbed a handrail and put her foot on the first rung and the slide seemed to throb to life, as if secret engines had been fired and would launch it into outer space. Amanda looked down at her mother, looked back into the slide … her expression slowly melting into the immaculate terror that only a child can know.

She whispered huskily, “Mommee!”

Jenny scrambled for handholds, footholds, her foot slipping from the rungs and her body flattening against the unyielding steel. An agony of pain flared from her shin. She saw that Amanda had a death grip on the guardrails. Her face was pallid, as if the monsters in closets and beneath beds were suddenly alive and lurking within the slide. Her feet stretched toward its maw as if something were trying to pull her inside. Her eyes were locked in a fierce squint.

Jenny hauled herself up, up the ladder, shivering involuntarily as she climbed. For a splintered second she thought she heard voices. The metal began to tingle and burn – frozen the way it might freeze in the stratosphere.

“MOMMEE!”

The girl’s hand slipped from the guardrail and she flipped onto her side –

“MOMMEE! I CAN’T HOLD ONE!”

And the slide pulled at her, gulping swallows of gravity, friction and inertia unbound and gone wild. The girl tried to grab the rail with her free hand and a dark cloud of panic swelled within Jenny, obliterating all thought but ascent, everything with ascent as its motive –

“HELP ME – ”

– three rungs, she was three rungs away –

“MOMMEE! MOMMEEEEE!”

– two –

“HOLD ON, AMANDA! DON’T LET GO – ”

– it pulled –

– one rung –

– the girl’s fingers slipped, one, two, three four, from the rail –

– Jenny wailed and snatched –

And grabbed a small fist. She fought to pull her daughter to her against the capering insanity of the Rocket Slide, called strength from reservoirs she hadn’t known existed, pulling her daughter out of the tunnel. She wrapped an arm around the biting, sub-zero metal and grabbed the girl by her shoulder and pulled until the girl slammed against her and the Rocket Slide heaved like a thing denied breath. Only then did she dare to look, to see into its throat –

– and stared into the vast, star-painted belly of the universe. A spiral galaxy unwound, frozen alive in the slow progression of time; wizards’ eyes of stars dusted the tunnel, shining hard and unblinking as they might from space. A ringed planet, its equator tilted insanely against the plane, loomed to one side, and as Jenny watched, a small dot of light, at first inconspicuous among the other stars, began to dilate. White light burned through, in fierce contrast to the surrounding void. The dot enlarged until it eclipsed nearly everything else in the tunnel, and a face appeared within it, blurred and amorphous. Jenny thought she could see hands reaching from the light, and she heard words, distorted at first, but gaining in clarity, as the circle of light expanded.

She thought she heard, “Come to Daddy.” She thought she recognized the voice.

Her thoughts seized on a single word: Bootleg. And everything inside her stopped.

Then Angela’s had her by the shoulders and arms, pulling her back to the top of the ladder. She gave herself to Angela, limp, and slipped fitfully beneath the surface of consciousness.

She thought she heard Amanda sobbing.

—

At dusk: An ethereal light glittered from the Rocket Slide. A lone child sat at the top of the chute, staring into the light. “No,” she shook her head. “My name’s Susie. Not ‘Manda.” And no, she didn’t know where Amanda lived because she didn’t know any Amanda, and she wasn’t lying and No! she wouldn’t come closer so he could see her.

The girl clambered down the ladder. She ran home to tell her mother about the bad man. Somebody’s father.

In the slide.

And the playground, the Rocket Slide: They did not move.

Image courtesy of Focus Features.

“Obsession” Starring Michael Johnston as Bear, Inde Navarrette as Nikki, Cooper Tomlinson as Ian, Megan Lawless as Sarah, and others. Written and directed by Curry Barker. 1 hour, 48 minutes. Rated R. Theatrical release.

Plot summary: A man who’s hopelessly in love with a pretty girl but can’t summon the nerve to tell her uses a novelty item to ask for a wish, that she love him more than anyone else. And she does. And does. And does. And does, ad finitum.

Spoilers: There aren’t many to spoil, but I’ll try to avoid doing that anyway.

Del’s take

Mladen was too busy telling children that Santa Claus doesn’t exist, and telling Trumpers that no, they won’t be getting a $5,000 check from DOGE, to see “Obsession” with me. Too bad because he missed a pretty good horror flick. After “Obsession” you’ll be canceling your Tinder profile and swearing off romance for the rest of your life, because like the good folks in AA say, “Moderation in all things,” has zero to do with this movie.

“Obsession” is scary, but not in the typical horror movie way. Imagine your next-door neighbor telling you his house is infested with Formosan termites, and they’ve been swarming the past three nights. It’s that kind of scary, a kind of subterranean dread that rumbles through your bones as events careen to their inevitable conclusion.

The story is about a man, nicknamed Bear, who’s crushing on Nikki, a cute coworker and member of his friend group. Bear’s too much of a scaredy cat to ask Nikki out – she even hands him an invitation on a sliver platter and he wusses out, the spineless coward. Instead, he takes the path of least risk. He buys a novelty item called a One Wish Willow, wishes that Nikki loved him more than anyone else in the world, then breaks the stick as per the instructions.

Big mistake.

Nikki doesn’t just love him. She becomes infatuated with him, to the point he can’t even take a shit without her wanting to be in the bathroom with him. That gets old pretty fast, but hang on, Nikki’s not done – oh no, she’s just getting started. And there is nothing – I mean N-O-T-H-I-N-G – Nikki won’t do to be at Bear’s side 24/7.

“Obsession” is a cautionary tale, the proverbial “be careful what you wish for – you just might get it.” It’s also about the claustrophobia of codependency and how we as human beings sometimes opt for the shiny bauble when the more sensible choice would be the less exotic but more authentic alternative. We see a hint of that with Sarah, who has plans for the future and seems to genuinely like Bear for who he is.

Inde Navarrette steals the movie with her portrayal of the bewitched and batshit-obsessed Nikki, and Megan Lawless is authentically warm and vulnerable as Sarah. Cooper Tomlinson’s Ian is a stereotyped lowbrow guy pal and didn’t leave much of an impression with me. Michael Johnston’s Bear, the movie’s viewpoint character, is my only significant gripe with “Obsession.” Bear is weak and often zoned-out or confused, to the point of irritation. At times I wondered if he was on the spectrum. And throughout the movie he continues to try to salvage this ill-gotten relationship with Nikki despite some horrendously (and criminal) actions on her part, which leads me to wonder: Who is the more obsessed, Nikki, or Bear? Do Bear’s creep credentials run a lot deeper than I suspected? It’s an annoying bit of ambiguity.

Despite that one fault, “Obsession” is a nifty movie that should strike a chord with the dating app crowd. It won’t keep you up at night, and it won’t lurk in your nightmares, but you’ll think about it before you swipe right. I’m giving it a B+.

Director and writer Curry Barker, a young dude from Mobile, Alabama, is quickly making a name for himself in Hollywood. “Obsession” cost less than a million bucks to make and so far has bought in $215 million, as per June 22, 2026. Those are the kind of numbers Hollywood pays attention to.

“Obsession” should keep Barker’s momentum going.

Image courtesy of PickPic by way of a Creative Commons license.

INTRODUCTION

Does comedic horror exist?

The producers of the “Scream” movies would say so, I think. But in fact, is “Scream” funny?

Well, it is my studied opinion that within the context of horror, yes, it is funny. I would call it gallows humor. It is funny the same way that “American Werewolf in London” and even the “Evil Dead” movies are funny.

These movies, and their cousins in book form, don’t take themselves seriously, not like “The Exorcist” or “The Shining.” And you know what? That’s OK. There’s a place for black humor in horror. Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, would give that statement a thumbs up. I think.

When I sat down to write “Siren’s Song” I didn’t intend to produce a work of comedic horror. That’s just how it happened. I mean, c’mon. How could you write a story about a man who kills and dismembers his wife because of her relentless singing and now she haunts him from the faucets, toilet and shower drain where he disposed of her body, and it not be funny? That’s humorous, not in a literal, family relations kind of way. For horror, anyway.

So here you go. Meet Myron, long-suffering husband to Phyllis, who yodeled her way to an untimely demise. Myron carved her into small pieces and flushed her down the toilet or pushed her down the shower drain, and now she’s singing his … well, certainly not praises. More likely his negative attributes. And that’s where they exist at the moment of this writing, an uneasy, horror-stricken balance of power between murder and retribution.

And isn’t that the way it goes so many times in a marriage, two negatives holding each other in a kind of check – not mate, just check – that goes on and on until their collective life comes to and end. …

Or does it?

—

SIREN’S SONG

Myron heard his wife singing in the shower.

Only problem was, Myron was in the shower too. And Myron’s wife was dead.

“Not fair,” Myron said miserably, staring at the drain – your average, Norman Bates “Psycho” shower drain – from which his wife’s warbling song emanated. “Phyllis deserved to die.”

And it was true. Phyllis had deserved to die. A frustrated Ethel Merman – and only a person of Myron’s generation would have known who Ethel Merman was – Phyllis had sung to Myron and sung and sung and sung until one day, Myron had simply –

“MOOOOON RIVERRRRRR,” the drain squalled –

– snapped, like the proverbial rubber band wound too tight.

Myron left the water running but stepped out of the shower. He tiptoed across the icy tiles to the vanity and opened the cabinet. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror; “Oh God,” he shuddered and slammed the cabinet shut.

Every bit of 58 years. With tits like his grandmother’s and that poochy, old man’s gut between his navel and his dick. And gray chest hair, for God’s sake. Gray chest hair smeared in cold, slimy strands across his sagging, grandmotherly titties.

“Not fair,” he muttered and scuttled back to the shower. He remembered a day when he liked what he saw in the mirror, when he could run his hands over his flat chest and press his palms into taut skin and let his fingers wander to his crotch, imagining they were Sophia Loren’s fingers, or more forbiddenly, Mrs. Andrew Williamson’s fingers as she handed him a Coke while he throttled back the lawnmower. She’d wanted him all right. But he’d been too stupid to know it, a kid mowing lawns for spending money. But she’d wanted him.

“YOUUUU LIGHT UP MY LIFEEEEEE!” the drain yodeled. Myron sighed and stepped into the warm spray.

Then Phyllis had come along, and he’d settled for her, the operative word being “settled.” Thirty years he’d settled for her, their marriage no less than hell’s mortgage where you paid off the principal the first year and spent the rest of your life trying to overtake an interest load that only grew larger and larger, no matter how much money or attention you threw at it. The debts and the misery and the anger had piled so high Myron could see nothing else, and Phyllis had sung through it all no matter how many times he’d told her just to shut the hell up, her off-kilter contralto ever reminding Myron that he had been a fool for marrying her and a coward for not leaving her.

“THAT’S THE WAY – UH HUH UH HUH – I LIKE ITTTTT!” the drain tittered, and Myron rolled his eyes. Disco? Death did not become Phyllis. But then she had not died easily, Myron thought, remembering the afternoon when she had launched into a verse of “Ave Maria” and he had gone after her with a machete. She had fought him the good fight, screeching all the way, and he had liked the sound of her screams. But in the end he had cut her into tiny pieces, rinsing all the gooshy stuff down the bathtub drain; the bigger chunks he’d flushed. The last to go had been her tongue, still languidly waggling as he yanked the trap from the bathtub drain and forced it down the pipe with the handle of a plunger.

Then the singing had begun.

Petula Clark. The Cure. Threepenny Opera tunes. Diana Ross. Nursery rhymes. And Ethel Merman, god forbid, baaaaad Ethel Merman. It hooted from the drain pipes and gurgled from the toilets, and while Myron could not put a stop to it, he had one way of changing Phyllis’ tune.

“Just shut the hell up, Phyllis,” Myron whispered, squatting in the bathtub, his old man’s belly pooching out even farther. He uncapped the bottle of lye and poured it down the Norman Bates drain.

The song faltered, and became a hitching scream.

Now that, Myron said to himself, his knees creaking as he stood, was something he thought he could live with.

About the author:

Del Stone Jr. is a professional fiction writer. He is known primarily for his work in the contemporary dark fiction field, but has also published science fiction and contemporary fantasy. Stone’s stories, poetry and scripts have appeared in publications such as Amazing Stories, Eldritch Tales, and Bantam-Spectra’s Full Spectrum. His short fiction has been published in The Year’s Best Horror Stories XXII; Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine; the Pocket Books anthology More Phobias; the Barnes & Noble anthologies 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, and 100 Astounding Little Alien Stories; the HWA anthology Psychos; and other short fiction venues, like Blood Muse, Live Without a Net, Zombiesque and Sex Macabre. Stone’s comic book debut was in the Clive Barker series of books, Hellraiser, published by Marvel/Epic and reprinted in The Best of Hellraiser anthology. He has also published stories in Penthouse Comix, and worked with artist Dave Dorman on many projects, including the illustrated novella “Roadkill,” a short story for the Andrew Vachss anthology Underground from Dark Horse, an ashcan titled “December” for Hero Illustrated, and several of Dorman’s Wasted Lands novellas and comics, such as Rail from Image and “The Uninvited.” Stone’s novel, Dead Heat, won the 1996 International Horror Guild’s award for best first novel and was a runner-up for the Bram Stoker Award. Stone has also been a finalist for the IHG award for short fiction, the British Fantasy Award for best novella, and a semifinalist for the Nebula and Writers of the Future awards. His stories have appeared in anthologies that have won the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. Two of his works were optioned for film, the novella “Black Tide” and short story “Crisis Line.”

Stone recently retired after a 41-year career in journalism. He won numerous awards for his work, and in 1986 was named Florida’s best columnist in his circulation division by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. In 2001 he received an honorable mention from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his essay “When Freedom of Speech Ends” and in 2003 he was voted Best of the Best in the category of columnists by Emerald Coast Magazine. He participated in book signings and awareness campaigns, and was a guest on local television and radio programs.

As an addendum, Stone is single, kills tomatoes and morning glories with ruthless efficiency, once tied the stem of a cocktail cherry in a knot with his tongue, and carries a permanent scar on his chest after having been shot with a paintball gun. He’s in his 60s as of this writing but doesn’t look a day over 94.

Contact Del at [email protected]. He is also on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, tumblr, TikTok, and Instagram. Visit his website at delstonejr.com .

Universal Studios

“Disclosure Day” Starring Emily Blunt as Margaret Fairchild, Josh O’Connor as Dr. Daniel Kellner, Colin Firth as Noah Scanlon, and others. Directed by Steven Spielberg. Two hours, 25 minutes. Rated PG-13. Theatrical release.

Plot summary: Dr. Daniel Kellner is being pursued by agents of the Wardex corporation because he stole information the company has been hiding for decades. He intends to release that information in hopes of changing the world. He’s abetted by weathergirl Margaret Fairchild, who has mysteriously developed the ability to read minds and speak foreign languages.

Spoilers: Does the UFO make crop circles in the wheat field?

Del’s take

I would probably have liked “Disclosure Day” a lot better had anyone but Steven Spielberg directed it. But because my expectations of Spielberg are higher than mere mortal directors, I was not overwhelmed. Don’t get me wrong. “Disclosure Day” is a decent movie. But I don’t think it’s one of his better efforts.

“Disclosure Day” marks a return to familiar grounds for Spielberg, those of the misunderstood alien who arrives on Earth and strikes up an alliance with sympathetic humans to survive. We saw it in “E.T. the Extraterrestrial” and “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” “Disclosure Day” is, in terms of structure, very similar to “Close Encounters” and tonally it resembles the glittery sentimentality of “A.I. Artificial Intelligence.”

That’s one of the problems with “Disclosure Day.” We’ve seen it all before.

The movie features two-track storytelling duties divided between Dr. Daniel Kellner (Josh O’Connor) and Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt). Kellner, a former employee of the Wardex corporation, has stolen secrets that, if revealed to the general public, could momentarily distract people from an impending showdown between Russia and the United States. At the same time Fairchild has mysteriously acquired the ability to speak Russian and Korean, and can read people’s minds. She begins to sense the presence of Kellner and feels a compulsion to help him, despite not knowing who he is or what he’s trying to do.

From there the movie becomes an extended chase scene as Kellner and Fairchild careen from one life-threatening situation to another in a desperate quest to release Kellner’s pilfered data to the world.

“Disclosure Day” is a fast-paced, entertaining movie that does not feel as long as its 2½-hour run time. The actors are well cast and do an excellent job – Blunt in particular stands out as the funny, disheveled and thoroughly baffled TV weathergirl-turned potential savior of mankind. And Wyatt Russell, son of Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn, steps away from his duties at “Monarch, Legacy of Monsters” to provide a convincing performance as Fairchild’s confused boyfriend, Jackson. Colin Firth and Josh O’Connor are also excellent.

Everything else about the movie reflects Spielberg’s meticulous attention to detail, and the score, another stellar John Williams composition, is rousing but, in my opinion, forgettable. All in all it’s a well-assembled product from the most talented movie director of our time.

But as I said, “Disclosure Day” is not one of Spielberg’s better movies. Apart from it being a pastiche – if not thematically then tonally – of “E.T.,” “Close Encounters” and “A.I.,” it asks the audience to accept an idea I found impossible to embrace – that people would freak out and stop believing in God if they discovered aliens exist. The material Kellner and Fairchild are working so hard to “disclose,” alien autopsies and crashed UFO video clips, are presented by Spielberg as mind-altering bits of information that would leave the world spellbound.

No, they wouldn’t.

You can search on YouTube right now and find any number of alien autopsy videos and crashed flying saucer clips. Not just YouTube – they’re all over the internet. They’re as good or better than the fictional Wardex videos. People would see the Wardex clips as nothing more than AI-generated slop, like the crap that’s already online. And after 70 years of “Star Trek,” “Star Wars,” “Close Encounters,” “The Day the Earth Stood Still” and tens of thousands of other movies and TV shows about alien civilizations, people are no longer awed by the idea of E.T. They expect E.T. to be out there. What “Disclosure Day” demonstrates more than anything else is that Spielberg, as a 70-something year old dude, is a little bit out of touch with the times.

The movie asks us to be more empathetic, an appropriate message for a time when the least empathetic among us are calling the shots, and it is yet another effort by Spielberg, with themes of innocence and wonder, to articulate and celebrate his and our youth.

But because I expect more from a Spielberg movie, and because it strikes so many familiar Spielbergian notes, and because it asks us to believe something I can’t and won’t believe, I’m giving it a grade of B.

“Disclosure Day” is a well assembled, entertaining movie, but in the end, we’ve seen it all before.

Mladen’s take

In 2025, it was “Sinners.” In 2026, it’s “Disclosure Day.” What’s the common thread? Both films were hyper‑hyped and both failed to deliver.

See the Movie Faceoff review of “Sinners,” if you want to know why that movie misfires. See below to get a bead on “Disclosure Day” faults.

“Disclosure Day” is an almost compelling movie driven by a shitload of sentimentality and some historical fiction a la the Bible.

Hell, I’m surprised Del didn’t mention the Adam and Eve thingy that unfolded as the movie careened toward an annoying ending. Toss in some mysticism, telekinesis, at least two poor decisions by Kellner, corporate mercenaries rampaging through cities and the countryside, an annoying scene in a train car, and you have yourself a story that left me, ah, a touch miffed rather than a whole lot hopeful.

Oh, almost forgot to mention this scene. To contain the film to a simple, two-sided good v. evil donnybrook, Spielberg inserted a 20-second scene that showed a corporate whack job convince a couple of gung‑ho U.S. military generals that the Department of Defense should NOT be getting involved in resolving a situation of, literally, cosmic significance. No way that would happen. Persuading DoD to NOT get directly involved in the chase to secure other-than-earthly information and stuff would be like trying to persuade Trump NOT to be stupid – futile.

Look, Blunt as Fairchild did everything Spielberg asked. And she did it credibly and with panache. No question. Blunt is one of the Top Five actors working today. O’Connor’s Kellner also helped Spielberg accomplish his “Disclosure Day” vision. The trouble? The vision is incorrect.

I start with a minor quibble. Again and again, I hear that mathematics is a universal language. No, it’s not. Mathematics, like the flushing toilet or the NASA Space Launch System, is just technology. Because math is a technology, there’s a nearly 0 percent chance that Earthmen could understand non-Earthmen through symbology because their symbologies would be incompatible. I say that with an assurance rate of 99.9 percent with a line over the top of the “9” to the right of the decimal point. For a more realistic take on talking science with an alien, see “Project Hail Mary.” The human and the animate rock in that story had to learn each other’s language, including the babble of science. 

Now, the bigger woe. “Disclosure Day” is propelled by the notion of “empathy.” If only humans were more empathetic to (with?) each other, we’d be happier, kinder, and un‑violent. Wrong. I cannot ever understand what another person feels because I have not led that person’s life. Neither can you. What I, and you, can be is sympathetic. Sympathy is sufficient because it requires that we only understand each other’s basic needs. I need not ever have gone hungry to know that starving sucks. I need not have ever injured myself, gone to the emergency room, and then been asked to pay $5,000 for three stitches because I had no health insurance. That, too, would suck. I also know that living in a house is better than living on the street, though, so far, anyway, I have not been houseless.

One other point about “empathy,” at least the way it was portrayed in the film. One of our two protagonists wielded the capacity to empathize. The “emphatizer” targeted the “empathizee” by using names, dates, and events that mattered most to the latter. Essentially, the empathizer manipulated the brains of empathizees to achieve the Disclosure Day mission. Humanity was lucky because the empathizer was channeling a do‑gooder. But could not empathy also be used to achieve evil? Yes, commander of the submarine, sorry you weren’t nominated for promotion to Rear Admiral. Yes, you deserved it. You worked hard. You endured much. Sorry about that backstabber. Everything will be alright if you just give me the launch codes for nuclear warhead‑tipped, sea‑launched ballistic missiles 2, 3, 7, and 9. Promise, I’ll set their yields to a mere 250 kilotons each because 500 would be too much.

 “Disclosure Day” has its heart in the right place. But it didn’t move me and I’m a pretty sensitive guy. I sympathize with the lesson it tries to teach. We do need to be nicer to each other. But that has been the case since Homo sapiens started clumping into villages of more than 500 people thousands of years ago. Why didn’t Spielberg show me something I didn’t already now?

“Disclosure Day” is a B- largely because Blunt pulled the movie along despite its silliness.

Mladen Rudman is a former journalist and technical writer. Del Stone Jr. is a former journalist and writer.

Image courtesy of Paramount.

“Passenger” starring Lou Llobell as not-always-making-the-best-choice Maddie Brecker, Jacob Scipio as not-always-making-the-best-choice Tyler Genocchio, Melissa Leo as damn-I-didn’t know-that-a-neck-could-do-that Diana Larson, Miles Fowler as Lucas Tedesco and Alan Trong as Daniel, the onset victims, and others. Directed by André Øvredal. Score Composer Christopher Young. Script Writers Zachary Donohue and T.W. Burgess. One hour, 34 minutes. Rated R. In theaters.

Plot summary: Maddie and Tyler are yuppies tired of the grind. To shed their lives in Brooklyn, they buy a van camper to hit the road. And the road they hit when they make the mistake of stopping on a dark rural route somewhere out west to aid a car crash victim. Don’t look now, but there’s something in your rearview mirror and it’s inside your costly Benz.

Spoilers: Sure.

Mladen’s take

I start with a disclosure. There’s a small chance that I’m giving this satisfactory movie a lower grade than it deserves because it was made by Paramount Skydance Corp., which bribed the Imbecile Poser President to allow a merger with CBS by firing Stephen Colbert of The Late Show. What am I going to do now that the Trump‑loving, piece‑of‑shit entertainment company has bought venerable Warner Bros Discovery?

More important, how am I going tell our treasured Del that I ain’t seeing a movie from now on if it’s made by that piece‑of‑shit fascist‑adoring business? Huh?

“Passenger” features good acting, a fabulous score and soundtrack, and a top‑notch soundscape. Too bad it’s made by a piece‑of‑shit studio. Oh, I’ve said that already.

Llobell as Maddie is convincing as a young adult realizing there’s a malevolent supernatural something targeting her and her somewhat fiancé because … why? The vanpers stopped to help a car crash victim. Scipio’s Tyler is solid as a skeptic about what Maddie is telling him as they travel here and there living the life he wants.

Oddly, the most interesting part of “Passenger” is the way Maddie and Tyler evolve as a couple while trying to avoid getting killed. They highlight the subdued horror that often accompanies a relationship when one person is only doing something for the other person’s sake. Of course, Tyler recognizes the folly of his ways but it takes an evil force wearing the collar of a priest to help him come around.

That’s another decent, though clichéd, component in the film, the religiosity. It’s the whole good v. bad, God v. Satan thing running along at a clip that doesn’t overwhelm the moviegoer with sanctimonious tripe. The spirit of the movie is that our beloved couple is protected by the saint of travelers and hunted by a fraudulent monk who was once the saint’s sidekick. Good enough.

And, finally, there’s the movie’s atmosphere. The roads are tunnels formed by the canopy of towering trees or traverse a ceaseless brown dessert. No street lights on the highway to hell. “Passenger” does a nice job integrating Hobo lore as part of its story.

“Passenger” malfunctions in the usual way for horror movies or, for that matter, sci‑film films. People make stupid choices because they ain’t responding to the call of self‑preservation. Even if they’re just being curious, we all know what curiosity does to the cat. Yes?

Maddie, if you’re walking to your parked Benz van and it keeps moving farther from you by itself without the engine ever starting every time you look away because you heard a spooky noise, it’s time to return to the 24‑hour gym where your boy is working out.

Yes, Tyler, I discourage you from driving the van down a desolate, rutted gravel road into a foggy forest where no one can hear you scream, let alone get ghosted‑ed. Good God, man, can’t you see that your pseudo‑betrothed is shitting bricks from her nicely shaped ass because she’s afraid of the night?

“Passenger” is a C. I say that, in small part, because the Culture Wars demon has hardened my heart. I respect Llobell’s and Scipio’s acting, sure as hell loved the music and sound effects, but they did their good work for a studio driven by the inverted Pentagram or the Orange Blob with cankles and dementia. Take your pick. Either is bad. 

Del’s take

You’ve got to hand it to Mladen: Once he gets his rage on he’s like a Michigan snowbird closing in on a $10 breakfast buffet. You get in his way and you’ll be squashed flatter than a McDonald’s hamburger patty.

But he’s right. My opinion of Paramount – after its lily-livered culling of Stephen Colbert at the behest of President Harkonnen, and its castration of “60 Minutes” – ranks down there with being on the receiving end of a digital prostate exam administered by Freddy Kreuger. I have no problem abiding by Mladen’s boycott of Paramount “content” – I’ll add it to my ever-growing list of corporations that will never see one nickel of my meager assets – Chick-fil-A, Hobby Lobby and Target.

As for “Passenger,” what can I say? I haven’t been terrified by a horror movie since 2004 when Sarah Michelle Gellar watched a very pale, hairy Japanese ghost lady crawl across the ceiling in “The Grudge.” And who can forget the most ravishing woman in all of time, Naomi Watts, answer the most sinister spam call in all of time in 2002’s “The Ring”? That’s one she definitely should have let go to voicemail.

“Passenger” does have its moments.

It begins with a pre-title sequence, just like “The Mandalorian,” that actually scared me. Two young men are driving through a forested area – at night, of course – when they stop because one young man with the world’s tiniest bladder needs to pee. While Mr. Micro-Bladder is in the bushes doing his thing, strange sounds emerge from the forest. Then, the car horn blows continuously. At first, Mr. Micro-Bladder thinks it’s his buddy good-naturedly harassing him and returns to the car. But then he discovers the car is empty. …

From that point the movie follows a fairly predictable trajectory. Maddie and Tyler, the true viewpoint characters of the story, come across Mr. Micro-Bladder and his wrecked Honda and stop to help, and in that moment a transfer takes place where whatever had been stalking the two young men now latches on to our newly engaged couple. That’s why you should never stop and render aid at the scene of a car accident, the movie repeatedly warns. I’m sure law enforcement and medical authorities are thrilled with that message.

Running parallel to this surface plot is the conflict between Maddie and Tyler, who seem at odds over the direction their life together should take. Tyler loves the idea of working remotely and going wherever the road takes them. Maddie had too much of that vagabond existence in her childhood and wants the stability of a home base. This is where the movie becomes somewhat annoying because neither Tyler nor Maddie will actually sit down and have an adult conversation about their differences. For God’s sake, people. Talk!

Where “Passenger” shines is in its atmospherics. As Mladen correctly pointed out (for once), director Øvredal makes effective use of the absence of light, the glance askance, and the power of suggestion to generate his spooky tension. Cars driving through a densely forested region at night bore tunnels of light from the dark. Parking lot lights illuminate a small patch of asphalt but make the surrounding areas look oh so much darker. A quick glance in the rear-view mirror suggests somebody might be sitting behind you, but when you look directly, nobody is there.

For me, the most masterful use of light takes place when Maddie and Tyler are watching a movie at a forest camp site. Something comes out of the woods and attacks them. They use the movie projector as a kind of flashlight, creating a very eerie effect as Jimmy Stewart’s face is projected against trees, shrubs and other surfaces. Very creepy!

Øvredal hides his monster through about two-thirds of the movie but finally succumbs to the temptation of Showing Us What He Looks Like, which for me was a buzzkill. I’m an adherent of the Ridley Scott school of filmmaking, which requires the monster be hidden until the very end, if shown at all. Again, human imagination is usually the root of all fear.

“Passenger” touched on ideas presented in other movies. Itinerate workers living in their vans and RVs was the central theme of “Nomadland.” The modern Western road milieu, with the monsters who inhabit that realm, harkens back to movies like “The Hitcher” and “Near Dark.” And the idea of a thing relentlessly stalking an innocent passerby reminds me of one of my favorites, “It Follows.”

“Passenger” was better than most of the horror movies I’ve seen lately, but in the end it did not create a lasting impression – not like “The Ring.” For that reason I’m giving it a B. I won’t penalize it for being a Paramount project, though I wish another studio would buy the rights to “Star Trek” so I can watch some of the newer shows.

See “Passenger” in the theater, if for no other reason than to experience the superb sound.

Mladen Rudman is a former journalist and technical writer. Del Stone Jr. is a former journalist and writer.

Image courtesy of Disney.

“Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu” Starring Pedro Pascal as The Mandalorian, Sigourney Weaver as Colonel Ward, and the voice of Martin Scorsese as Hugo Durant, among others. Directed by John Favreau. Two hours, 12 minutes. Rated PG-13.

Plot summary: Mandalorian Din Djarin and his young companion, Grogu, must rescue the son of Jabba the Hutt from the moon Shakari in exchange for information about the location of Imperial warlord Commander Coin.

Spoilers: Of course.

Del’s take

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, movies were made with such joie de vivre they exceeded the sum of their parts. Now, they are made to sell pillowcases and stuffed animals.

“Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu” has a hero and a villain; a “plot,” if it can be called that; rising action and a climax; a rousing score – all the ingredients of an actual movie. But its pieces are stitched together by the thinnest narrative thread, and its performances are curiously lifeless. When director Favreau throws the switch and electricity flows into his creation, absolutely nobody will shout, “It’s alive!”

The story is about Din Djarin, a Mandalorian, and his ward, Grogu, a kind of mini-Yoda, who are tasked with rescuing the son of notorious crime lord Jabba the Hutt in exchange for information about the location of Imperial warlord Commander Coin. They discover Jabba’s son, Rotta, is actually a pawn in an evil scheme managed by the Hutt twins, cousins of Jabba and successors to his crime organization. To restore balance to – if not the force then karma – Djarin and Grogu must embark on a series of galaxy-spanning adventures that confront them with mortal peril.

The movie is structured like a James Bond film, with a pre-title sequence worthy of the ticket price. From there it settles into a string of episodic cliffhangers that carry the movie to its not very satisfying conclusion.

Like many Star Wars movies, the actors’ roles are muted – in this case suppressed to the point that nobody really gives a damn what happens to them. Even Sigourney Weaver, queen of the “Alien” and “Avatar” franchises, musters only a pale shadow of the badass gravitas she brings to those other projects. It doesn’t help that Pedro Pascal is concealed behind a helmet for most of the film, and Grogu is nothing more than a puppet designed to sell warehouses of branded junk.

Characters are given zero backstory. If you haven’t seen the Disney streaming series “The Mandalorian” you won’t have any idea what’s happening. But that doesn’t matter because the Star Wars universe has become so fraught with complication you’d need a doctorate’s in entropy to keep track of the entanglements, subplots and allegiances.

In the end, who cares? We know from experience the Mandalorian will outrun, outfight and outlive any adversary, and the strange little green puppet he’s taken on as a friend will sell whatever schlock they slap his likeness on. It’s just another episode in the endless marketing campaign that passes for art in the United States these days.

“Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu” is the kind of movie AI would create if AI could make movies. It has no beating heart. Its characters are bland. The plot reads like a series of hastily sketched TV episodes. It has the look and feel of a Star Wars movie but provides nothing in the way of a relatable human experience. I saw the original Star Wars movie, “A New Hope,” in the movie theater 19 times because that movie spoke to me.

“Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu” put me to sleep.

I’m giving it a C+.

Mladen’s take

I was giddy during the first explosion-laced, body count-filled, mystique-building 5 minutes of “Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu.” My mind was racing. Where does Mando and Grog belong in the Top Five List of the best Star Wars movies? I put it in 4th place.

Man, from the score and its Andes Mountains bass recorder serenity to Imperial walkers detonating, Din Djarin blasts away from the shadows. When he emerges from the dark, the set pieces become a combination of the finest street-level fighting in any Star Wars film. It’s Jedi, Grammaton Cleric, and Wick hand-to-hand spliced together. Just beautiful. The pacing and, this is important, the realism of the destruction is palpable.

Then, Mando and Grog deteriorates, though not linearly. There are moments that had me thinking there’s yet hope for this film. When the scene cuts to Mando in the spacious cockpit of his ST-70 Assault Ship Razor Crest, I floated into my own sci-fi fantasy. There I am flying my hijacked Va’Ruun Dirge with its vast solar wind canopy hiding nothing in front of me as I explore the worlds of the video game “Starfield.” Lovely.

But, Mando and Grog never realize my hope. The film’s unemotional, way too calm, expository, and plodding dialogue never relented. It sounded too much like humans talk on planet Earth today. The idioms annoyed me. There’s too much of us in this movie. At least Mando never pulled a cell phone from his cloak to post a selfie of him blasting a man-sized centipede‑like creature during an enclosed arena kickboxing-like showdown.

Mando and Grog is too much action and too little story as Del noted, I must concede, very nicely in his take despite getting all French‑y on us. Joie de vivre, Del? Tu es snob? The scriptwriters and the director blew the opportunity to make Mando and Grog an iconic Star Wars flick.

Another problem with the film is a very, very long stretch of cinematography that seemed to exist for no better reason than demonstrating puppeteering. Yeah, Grogu is cute but only becomes relevant late in the film when he saves Din’s life. And that took too long.

As I brooded about the movie, which Del and I saw in unnecessary 3D, its fatal flaw finally occurred to me. More than any other factor, Mando and Grog misfires because it lacks a magnificent Bad Guy. The Hutts are vapid. The former Empire officers turned criminals are puny and weak.

The revelation also helped me understand how I rank Star Wars movies. The best Star Wars movies starting with the best of the best are: “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” “Star Wars Episode IV – A New Hope,” “Star Wars – The Empire Strikes Back,” and “Star Wars Episode VI – Return of the Jedi.” Note that there are only four exceptional films. Why? Because they have Darth Vader. Because they are Darth Vader, more than anything else.

Vader, now dead in the lore and resurrecting him like the Emperor in “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” is impossible because it would annihilate the Star Wars universe, is also the reason there’ll never be another great Star Wars movie though a very good one remains possible.

Vader has no equal in Bad Guy moviedom. Sure Agent Smith of The Matrix comes close but he’s only software. Vader of the Dark Side is both Satan and God and he looks and sounds like it. His purpose muddies gradually across the four great Star Wars movies. And, as an aside, his “cameo” at the end of Rogue One is one of the most spectacular scenes generated by any moviemaker anywhere.

So, what’s left for the world of Star Wars? Recognizing that each new film needs a fresh plot codified by a great script supplemented by a majestic score that’s enhanced through stunning visual effects without 3D bullshit. In that order. If Disney is unable to do that with the next film sans (there I go getting all French‑y) AI, it’s spacetime for Star Wars to be sucked into a black hole to be never again seen.

“The Mandalorian and Grogu” is a C worth seeing in the theater by those who enjoy action for action’s sake.    

Mladen Rudman is a former journalist and technical writer. Del Stone Jr. is a former journalist and writer.

Photo by Del Stone Jr.

Something weird is happening in Choctawhatchee Bay.

It’s changing, in ways we may not like.

I base this hypothesis, first, on the anecdotal evidence of my own eyes.

You’re probably tired of hearing me say I’ve lived in Fort Walton Beach since 1964, but it’s true. I have. The first five years we lived inland, off Robinwood Drive. Then in 1969 we moved to Elliot Point, one street off Choctawhatchee Bay. That move instantly changed my life.

I became a water person.

Living near the water changes you. Over time you come to know every mood, every nuance, every topographical and hydrological detail of this body of water which, in my case, borders my little world on two sides. My first enduring memory of the bay is waking up the Saturday morning before Hurricane Camille struck Gulfport, Miss., and hearing waves pummel the shoreline of Choctawhatchee Bay.

We lived on this bay. I learned how to water ski on the flats by the old Vortac station on the island. Dad and I caught bluefish and speckled trout on the grass beds just west of Crab Island. We picnicked on Bird Island northwest of Destin. We hunted ducks in Santa Rosa Sound. We sailed in with the Bowlegs krewe, bombs and all. We watched fireworks from The Point.

For all the time I’ve lived next to Choctawhatchee Bay – that would be 57 years now – its waters were a tannic brown, stained by the trees that made up the watershed through which the rivers that filled the bay flowed. Right around the East Pass and Crab Island bay water gave way to Gulf of Mexico water, which was a gorgeous, jewel-like emerald in color. But farther inland, tea-colored, brackish water was the order of the day.

Over the past few years, however, that has changed.

Now, the water along the bay coastline in Fort Walton Beach, even into Cinco Bayou and Shalimar, is taking on the same emerald hue as water along our Gulf beaches. That can mean only one thing:

More Gulf water is coming into the bay. The question is, why?

I can think of three reasons:

1. Water flowing into the bay from rivers has been reduced by more development along the watershed.

2. Changes in rainfall patterns could reduce the volume of water flowing into the bay from rivers.

3. Rising sea levels.

I looked at the most recent water quality study of Choctawhatchee Bay by the Choctawhatchee Basin Alliance. According to that report, salinity levels in the bay are increasing. That means more water from the gulf is entering the bay.

But I wanted to be sure, so I contacted the CBA on Facebook. I told them I’d noticed the color of the bay was changing and I asked them why that was happening. This is what they said:

“Hi! Yes, it is most likely attributed to rising sea levels, more king tides and higher tides, as well as a drier cycle over the last several years. Our data shows increasing salinity trends over the last ten years. We can surmise the reasons listed above, but we have no definitive study.”

If there hasn’t been a definitive study of this issue done before, there sure as hell needs to be one done now, because this would confirm sea level rise and climate change. It would also confirm why, for instance, water tables across the state of Florida are rising, and inland areas are starting to experience flooding. We need much more information about this subject because lives and property hang in the balance. Instead, the DeSantis administration here in Florida and the Trump administration at the federal level are either ignoring or suppressing these areas of inquiry.

I don’t need an expensive study to tell me Choctawhatchee Bay is changing. I can see it with my own eyes. The water is definitely different. In the future, meaning this summer, hurricanes could push water into areas that have never seen it.

Climate change deniers take heed – you’re rejecting the evidence of your own eyes. It’s happening, and whether you like it or not, you too will be affected.

Better to bail water as the boat is sinking, not after it has already sunk.

About the author:

Del Stone Jr. is a professional fiction writer. He is known primarily for his work in the contemporary dark fiction field, but has also published science fiction and contemporary fantasy. Stone’s stories, poetry and scripts have appeared in publications such as Amazing Stories, Eldritch Tales, and Bantam-Spectra’s Full Spectrum. His short fiction has been published in The Year’s Best Horror Stories XXII; Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine; the Pocket Books anthology More Phobias; the Barnes & Noble anthologies 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, and 100 Astounding Little Alien Stories; the HWA anthology Psychos; and other short fiction venues, like Blood Muse, Live Without a Net, Zombiesque and Sex Macabre. Stone’s comic book debut was in the Clive Barker series of books, Hellraiser, published by Marvel/Epic and reprinted in The Best of Hellraiser anthology. He has also published stories in Penthouse Comix, and worked with artist Dave Dorman on many projects, including the illustrated novella “Roadkill,” a short story for the Andrew Vachss anthology Underground from Dark Horse, an ashcan titled “December” for Hero Illustrated, and several of Dorman’s Wasted Lands novellas and comics, such as Rail from Image and “The Uninvited.” Stone’s novel, Dead Heat, won the 1996 International Horror Guild’s award for best first novel and was a runner-up for the Bram Stoker Award. Stone has also been a finalist for the IHG award for short fiction, the British Fantasy Award for best novella, and a semifinalist for the Nebula and Writers of the Future awards. His stories have appeared in anthologies that have won the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. Two of his works were optioned for film, the novella “Black Tide” and short story “Crisis Line.”

Stone recently retired after a 41-year career in journalism. He won numerous awards for his work, and in 1986 was named Florida’s best columnist in his circulation division by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. In 2001 he received an honorable mention from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his essay “When Freedom of Speech Ends” and in 2003 he was voted Best of the Best in the category of columnists by Emerald Coast Magazine. He participated in book signings and awareness campaigns, and was a guest on local television and radio programs.

As an addendum, Stone is single, kills tomatoes and morning glories with ruthless efficiency, once tied the stem of a cocktail cherry in a knot with his tongue, and carries a permanent scar on his chest after having been shot with a paintball gun. He’s in his 60s as of this writing but doesn’t look a day over 94.

Contact Del at [email protected]. He is also on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, tumblr, TikTok, and Instagram. Visit his website at delstonejr.com .

I was sitting in an office, having a conversation with a doctor, when his nurse poked her head through the door and said, “Is that your little white car out in the parking lot?”

You always want to hear those words.

And yes, it was my little white car in the parking lot. I asked her if it had been hit. She said yes, it had. I didn’t know what to do. The doctor suggested we go outside and take a look, so out we went, into a gentle rain, where a gray Toyota Tundra was butt cheek to butt cheek against my Honda HRV. In fact, I’m still trying to figure out how that happened.

The lady who did it was extremely upset and very apologetic. I wanted to tell her that’s why they call them “accidents.” I wanted to tell her if her husband gave her a hard time, remind him of the time HE dented the fender. But I was too distracted.

The two were separated. At first, it appeared only the mirror had been scraped. But then I noticed the driver’s side door had been dented. That would need fixing.

The medical clinic staff was magnificent. While I returned to the doctor’s office, they gathered the woman’s insurance information, took photos, and called the Florida Highway Patrol, which said if the accident occurred in a parking lot and nobody was injured, they wouldn’t respond. Many kudos and thanks to those folks.

The lady’s insurance company was the same as mine. I thought that would make it easier. Looking back, I’d say it added another layer of confusion. When I called to file a claim, I had to make sure they were filing it against HER policy, not mine. I’d hate to see my rates go up. I don’t see how they can go much higher, but never tempt the insurance company gods.

My car is in the shop right now being fixed. The insurance company provided me with a car. Yes, a car. It’s fine, except it sits a lot lower than my admittedly small SUV. Getting out of the car is like raising the Titanic. And it’s got technology my 8-year-old SUV doesn’t have, like a blind-spot warning light, which I love, and push-button start, of which I’m suspicious. How does one start the car when the fob battery dies?

Oh, and I just got off the phone with the insurance company claims adjuster. Somehow, she had it in her “narrative” that I had backed out of a parking spot and hit the other vehicle. I said no, that’s not right. She said, tell me in your own words what happened. I said, I was not even in the car. A woman tried to park next to me and hit my car. She said, “I’m just reading what’s in the narrative.” I said, Well, sorry, but your narrative is wrong. She didn’t seem to appreciate my snarky tone.

Then I told her we both have the same car insurance company – the one she works for. Ohhhhh. That made a difference. She did some digging. I had to listen to some awful corporate hold music. Then she came back online and said yes, she understood now.

I fully expect that when my next insurance bill comes due it’ll be $500 higher because of the accident “I caused,” and I’ll spend days on the phone trying to explain to insurance adjusters that I did NOT cause the accident, that I was NOT even in the car, and then who knows?

Maybe I’ll just get rid of the car and take Uber from now on.

About the author:

Del Stone Jr. is a professional fiction writer. He is known primarily for his work in the contemporary dark fiction field, but has also published science fiction and contemporary fantasy. Stone’s stories, poetry and scripts have appeared in publications such as Amazing Stories, Eldritch Tales, and Bantam-Spectra’s Full Spectrum. His short fiction has been published in The Year’s Best Horror Stories XXII; Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine; the Pocket Books anthology More Phobias; the Barnes & Noble anthologies 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, and 100 Astounding Little Alien Stories; the HWA anthology Psychos; and other short fiction venues, like Blood Muse, Live Without a Net, Zombiesque and Sex Macabre. Stone’s comic book debut was in the Clive Barker series of books, Hellraiser, published by Marvel/Epic and reprinted in The Best of Hellraiser anthology. He has also published stories in Penthouse Comix, and worked with artist Dave Dorman on many projects, including the illustrated novella “Roadkill,” a short story for the Andrew Vachss anthology Underground from Dark Horse, an ashcan titled “December” for Hero Illustrated, and several of Dorman’s Wasted Lands novellas and comics, such as Rail from Image and “The Uninvited.” Stone’s novel, Dead Heat, won the 1996 International Horror Guild’s award for best first novel and was a runner-up for the Bram Stoker Award. Stone has also been a finalist for the IHG award for short fiction, the British Fantasy Award for best novella, and a semifinalist for the Nebula and Writers of the Future awards. His stories have appeared in anthologies that have won the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. Two of his works were optioned for film, the novella “Black Tide” and short story “Crisis Line.”

Stone recently retired after a 41-year career in journalism. He won numerous awards for his work, and in 1986 was named Florida’s best columnist in his circulation division by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. In 2001 he received an honorable mention from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his essay “When Freedom of Speech Ends” and in 2003 he was voted Best of the Best in the category of columnists by Emerald Coast Magazine. He participated in book signings and awareness campaigns, and was a guest on local television and radio programs.

As an addendum, Stone is single, kills tomatoes and morning glories with ruthless efficiency, once tied the stem of a cocktail cherry in a knot with his tongue, and carries a permanent scar on his chest after having been shot with a paintball gun. He’s in his 60s as of this writing but doesn’t look a day over 94.

Contact Del at [email protected]. He is also on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, tumblr, TikTok, and Instagram. Visit his website at delstonejr.com .

Image courtesy of Neon.

“Hokum” Starring Adam Scott as tortured asswipe Ohm Bauman, Peter Coonan as bumbling bad guy Mal, Florence Ordesh as wispy but likeable Fiona, Brendan Conroy as decent Cob, and others. Directed by Damian McCarthy. 1 hour, 47 minutes. Rated R. Theatrical release.

Plot summary: Caustic Bauman is a successful novel writer with a past that haunts him. He heads for Ireland to disperse the ashes of his mother and father at the place where they honeymooned, a backwoods hotel. There, Bauman encounters a bundle of characters who lead him toward a reckoning filled with terror and regret and salvation.  

Spoilers: Gotta tell you something about the movie to make the review make sense. No?

Mladen’s take

If I had to guess, and I will, “Hokum” will probably make a little bit of money in the theaters before getting shoved into the capacious jaws of the beast of streaming. That’s too bad because this horror crime thriller of a film is pretty darned good on a couple of planes.

More than anything, the movie’s sound effects and score are superb.

Even at the old theater where Del and I saw the film, the speakers generated an immersive mood. Rain plinking gutters. Wind sweeping through the canopy of towering pines. The hotel creaking from age or moaning from its disused basement. It was all so crisp and satisfyingly phlegmatic. Loved it to no end.

The cinematography was real. No computer-generated imagery here. The narrow stone passageways, the ghostly honeymoon suite, the cramped dumbwaiter, all practical effects well used.

“Hokum” builds suspense, throws in a jump scare or two, and ends with a satisfying, if not dubious, lesson: The truly evil do get punished, at least at the Bilberry Woods Hotel.  

To top it all off, the movie offers nothing obscene. Blood doesn’t spray. Guts don’t spill. Heads aren’t separated from shoulders. There’s no nudity. Normally, the lack of any of those in a horror movie disappoints me. Not so in this case.

“Hokum” plays very nicely with lighting. Dimness is the film’s ally. And there’s no better way to create it but with the use of the plain and simple incandescent bulb. Their orange glow doesn’t travel far. It seemed that the “Hokum” set was designed to eat light. It barely reflected from any surface. It cast shadows that trifled with your imagination. Lovely, indeed.

What’s the consequence of masterful use of lighting in film. Is there a demon looking up at you from the dumbwaiter’s deep shaft? Maybe. What’s that circling you? Only its silhouette is visible through the thin fabric of the curtain shrouding the bed where you’re hiding.

My principal gripe with “Hokum” is the chattiness of the Irish folk who Bauman encounters at the hotel. They disclose more than warranted to the stranger in their midst and continue doing so.

Also, I’m no fan of the suicide. It’s misplaced as a story arc. The person offing themselves may have been a dickhead but there was no evidence of suicidal tendencies or, for that matter, ideation.

Still, the film’s moodiness, coupled to the good acting by all the principal players, makes for good horror. “Hokum” is but a witch’s cold breath from an A-.

Del’s take

Wait just a minute, Mladen. Aren’t you the one who said, “Why are you making me watch horror?” as the trailers ended and the opening credits for “Hokum” rolled across the screen? I thought you didn’t like horror. Yet here you are, giving an A- to a horror movie. You old softie. I bet you like cats, too.

But you’re right, Mladen. “Hokum” is a damn fine movie, worth every pixel of your digital approbation. But I should clarify – “Hokum” is not a horror movie per se, although it’s being pitched as such. “Hokum” is a haunted house story that evolves into a murder mystery, in the spirit of 2000’s “What Lies Beneath.”

Kudos to Adam Scott for reigning in his comedic impulses and delivering an excellent dramatic performance as the unlikeable Ohm Bauman. Mladen, did you notice the possible significance of his first name, “Ohm,” which is a measure of electrical resistance? You might say he’s stubborn, which would play well with the image of the ram skull, another symbol of unyielding resistance. Bauman is a hard-hearted fellow who has shut off his feelings after a tragedy of his childhood, one for which he blames himself. Yet he yearns for the true vision of himself, just like the goats that climb onto cars in this movie because they seek a reflective surface after eating the magic mushrooms of the forest.

Kudos also to director Damian McCarthy for his steady hand at the tiller, eschewing the temptation of jump scares and gore in favor of mood, shadows and eerie music to build tension in this very scary movie. McCarthy seems to recognize the less seen the better in a movie where everything we’re witnessing just might be a fever dream concocted by a hallucinogenic fungi.

My only quibble: At one point Bauman becomes trapped in a room. I kept asking myself: Why doesn’t he simply break out a window and jump?

Still, “Hokum” is a terrific example of horror, ghost stories, murder mysteries – whatever you want to call them – done right. It pits the Ugly American against Old World Courtliness, and in the end … well, I won’t say, because I don’t want to spoil it for you. Do go see “Hokum” in the theater. It’s much spookier that way.

Oh, and Mladen, I’ll call your A-.

Mladen Rudman is a former journalist and technical writer. Del Stone Jr. is a former journalist and writer.

Image courtesy of Pxhere by way of a Creative Commons license. https://pxhere.com/en/photo/1222994

INTRODUCTION

The hardest thing you may ever have to do is bury a child. The second-hardest is burying a parent.

When my father passed away, only a year after I wrote this story, I felt like an orphan. Worse, I was now responsible for my mother. I had two siblings, but one lived 35 miles away and the other a thousand. I lived only a mile or two from Mom, so I became the go-to sibling for Mom Problems – the stopped-up sink, the car that wouldn’t start, the strange sound outside the door at night.

Was I up for the challenge? We’d soon find out.

Not a week after Dad passed, Mom was on the phone asking about a piece of paperwork from the bank. It was about her IRA. I came over to check. It looked like all the funds had been withdrawn. How was that possible? Mom started crying. She had no idea what to do, so I told her I’d take care of it, and the next day I was at the bank trying to find out what had happened.

Turns out, it was a kind of receipt. When the IRA was taken out of Dad’s name and put in Mom’s, a new account had to be created and the funds rolled over from Dad’s account to Mom’s. That’s all.

But it was the first of many, many jobs I had to do for Mom over the coming years. She passed in 2022, outliving my father by 24 years. That was 24 years of medical emergencies, hurricanes, car accidents, balky washing machines and scam artists who prey on the elderly I presided over. I look back on it and wonder how I managed – while working a full-time job and dealing with my own medical emergencies, balky washing machines and scam artists.

It was stressful and solutions were hard work – but nothing like the solution provided by the dutiful son in this short story!

You’ll be pleased to know this is NOT autobiographical, and it wasn’t based on real events.

If you’re not pleased about that, I sure am!

THE DUTIFUL SON

“It’s perfectly normal to feel guilt when your parents pass away,” Bob Harrison said quietly, his voice in resonance with the gloom that shrouded the living room. It was a dark day, and the curtains were drawn, and two kind and gentle people had just died.

The other man, young Ed Masters, reached to the side of his La-Z-Boy and yanked the lever that raised the footrest. Then he leaned back and stared Bob straight in the eye and said, “I should have spent more time with them, but that’s OK. My parents will live in me for the rest of my life.”

Harrison nodded. “Yes. In all of us.” He did not know if the words would comfort Ed, but he felt he must try. Barbara and Clayton Masters had been loving and devoted members of their Unitarian Universalist congregation for many years, and now they would have every answer to every question life had ever posed to them, having passed away within a day of one another, a rare partnership in existence that transcended mortal bounds. Harrison almost envied them, but he would mourn only their absence as they had gone to whatever better place lay in store for them.

But young Ed had rarely attended services, and Harrison doubted he harbored any belief system at all. So Harrison had dropped by to visit, to make sure Ed was holding up OK. It was the least he could do for Barb and Clay.

“Will there be services?” Harrison asked. Ed shook his head.

“Nope. Why should there? My parents are alive. In me.”

Harrison tried not to let a frown creep into his expression. Young Ed seemed firm in his convictions – too firm, for somebody who had just lost his parents. Harrison pressed on.

“Will your parents be buried or cremated?”

“Neither,” Ed said.

“I don’t understand.”

Ed rolled his eyes. “Look, I know you’re trying to help, but I don’t need it. Really.” He stretched in the recliner. “I don’t feel any guilt about not spending time with my folks. I’m with them all the time. I’ve taken care of that.”

“What have you done?” Harrison asked.

“I’ve taken care of it,” Ed answered evenly, a whiff of anger heating the words.

Harrison spread his hands. “I ask because Barb and Clay were well-liked by the members of our congregation, and we’d like to honor their memory somehow.”

“Then have your own services,” Ed snapped. “I’ve already had mine.”

Something was wrong here. That dull, boorish component to young Ed’s personality was hanging over the room like a thundercloud, grief-stricken or not. And he did not seem so grief-stricken at that, Harrison heard himself thinking. Young Ed seemed almost defensive.

“What became of the remains?” Harrison asked.

Ed glared at him. “Is that important?”

“Yes,” Harrison shot back. “Barb and Clay were my friends, and I want to know what you did with them.”

He could see the color rising in young Ed’s cheeks, the anger blooming there like some horrible, crimson flower. And then just as quickly it broke, and Ed let out his breath in a hitching sigh that somehow seemed contrived.

“Will you please just leave me alone?” he sobbed. “Yes, I should have spent more time with them, but I’ve taken care of that. They’ll be with me always now.”

Harrison stood up abruptly and glowered at him. This was an act, a facade, a pretense of grief to throw him off track. He had the horrible feeling that the bodies were here, in this house, and an image sprang to mind of two desiccated corpses being discovered in the back bedroom years hence. It was more than Harrison could bear. Barb and Clay deserved better than that.

He marched down the hallway and began searching the bedrooms. Behind him, he heard young Ed shouting, “What the hell are you doing? Have you gone crazy?”

He went through the bedrooms, and the back bathroom, and then he tromped down the stairs and into the basement. He climbed back upstairs and thumped up into the attic.

Nowhere. They were nowhere. He came back downstairs. Young Ed stood in the hallway by the kitchen, leaning insolently against the wall. Harrison drew up to him and hissed, “I don’t know what you’ve done, but I’m calling the law on this.”

Young Ed smirked, “Be my guest,” and crossed his leg, bumping the kitchen garbage can. The lid toppled over, but not before Harrison spotted the bone inside, gnawed to the gristle.

A lump formed in his stomach. His gaze wandered to young Ed’s eyes. For the first time, he saw the true insanity lurking there.

“I told you,” young Ed said, his voice devoid of any emotion that could be called human. “My folks are alive. In me.”

About the author:

Del Stone Jr. is a professional fiction writer. He is known primarily for his work in the contemporary dark fiction field, but has also published science fiction and contemporary fantasy. Stone’s stories, poetry and scripts have appeared in publications such as Amazing Stories, Eldritch Tales, and Bantam-Spectra’s Full Spectrum. His short fiction has been published in The Year’s Best Horror Stories XXII; Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine; the Pocket Books anthology More Phobias; the Barnes & Noble anthologies 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, and 100 Astounding Little Alien Stories; the HWA anthology Psychos; and other short fiction venues, like Blood Muse, Live Without a Net, Zombiesque and Sex Macabre. Stone’s comic book debut was in the Clive Barker series of books, Hellraiser, published by Marvel/Epic and reprinted in The Best of Hellraiser anthology. He has also published stories in Penthouse Comix, and worked with artist Dave Dorman on many projects, including the illustrated novella “Roadkill,” a short story for the Andrew Vachss anthology Underground from Dark Horse, an ashcan titled “December” for Hero Illustrated, and several of Dorman’s Wasted Lands novellas and comics, such as Rail from Image and “The Uninvited.” Stone’s novel, Dead Heat, won the 1996 International Horror Guild’s award for best first novel and was a runner-up for the Bram Stoker Award. Stone has also been a finalist for the IHG award for short fiction, the British Fantasy Award for best novella, and a semifinalist for the Nebula and Writers of the Future awards. His stories have appeared in anthologies that have won the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. Two of his works were optioned for film, the novella “Black Tide” and short story “Crisis Line.”

Stone recently retired after a 41-year career in journalism. He won numerous awards for his work, and in 1986 was named Florida’s best columnist in his circulation division by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. In 2001 he received an honorable mention from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his essay “When Freedom of Speech Ends” and in 2003 he was voted Best of the Best in the category of columnists by Emerald Coast Magazine. He participated in book signings and awareness campaigns, and was a guest on local television and radio programs.

As an addendum, Stone is single, kills tomatoes and morning glories with ruthless efficiency, once tied the stem of a cocktail cherry in a knot with his tongue, and carries a permanent scar on his chest after having been shot with a paintball gun. He’s in his 60s as of this writing but doesn’t look a day over 94.

Contact Del at [email protected]. He is also on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, tumblr, TikTok, and Instagram. Visit his website at delstonejr.com .