STORY SHOWCASE #28

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SCIURIDCEREBROMAXIMATOSIS

by Zwolf

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A little taster…

At first, people thought it was funny. Because it was funny at that stage, squirrels having very enthusiastic sex all over the place. Every late-night host’s monologue sneaked “squirrels trying to get a nut” jokes past the censors, and since squirrel sex was something you could easily make into “Squirrels Gone Wild” memes and set to the music of your choice, the giggles did not stop. The over-breeding concerned the science community a little, as all environmental anomalies do, but it didn’t alarm them too much; they figured the predators would get them. That’s before they knew that they’d turn out to be the predators.

It was still funny for a few days even when the baby squirrels engendered by all this debauchery started attacking people. Nobody really took squirrels seriously, because the cute tails fool you into thinking they aren’t the Spider-Man version of rats.

But now that the bodies are piling up and almost everybody’s had a first-hand look at the kind of damage they do, the laughing’s over.

Because we’ve always had that kind of luck, Reese and I were two of the first to stop laughing.

About the author

Zwolf dwells in Mississippi and reads far more horror and trashy fiction than anyone should. He also writes some occasionally, much of which can be found online at mightyblowhole.blogspot.com along with book and movie reviews.

We asked Zwolf …

K&R: What was the spark or idea that led you to write this story?

Z: Honestly, I was picking between ideas I thought I could handle in 5000 words. Writing a 5000 word story is a challenge, since I tend toward wordiness. Like Andrew Vachss once said, “Writing a short story is like fighting in a small ring; whatever your style, you better get busy, fast.” So I was trying to figure an idea I could do justice to in the allotted space and still create enough character development so the reader would care if the protagonists lived or died. With “critter horror” you can control how long it goes … if it’s getting too bloated, just stop the attacks! Also, I hate squirrels. Yeah, they’re cute, but they also eat all the pears and apples off my trees before they’re ripe enough to harvest, and they’ve given me several costly car repairs because they like to gnaw wires. Raise a hood in the rural South and you’re probably going to find acorns stashed on the manifold … If you live out in the country you see squirrels as menaces … so I just turned that up a skitch and made the threat more direct.

K&R: Do you have any other work do you have out there, for folks to dig into?

Z: Oh yeah, I’ve got loads and loads of stuff, all free. I had a story in CriminOlly present Garbology: The GarbAugust Anthology of Awesome Trash but most of my stuff is on The Mighty Blowhole Blog (https://mightyblowhole.blogspot.com/). I haven’t updated it in a while (partially due to log-in issues I’m lazy about fixing), but there’s tons of stuff there. Besides my stories, as well as a few other people’s, there are book reviews, music reviews, movie reviews, random whatever. If you find the most recent story, “Cousin Claude”, it’ll provide you a list of links to more stories than you may even want. Most of them are horror, although there are a couple (identifiable by having AC/DC songs for titles) that are biker fiction. I tried writing the kind of stuff Easyriders used to publish back in its “outlaw” days, although my antihero is female and those guys were too insecure to accept female badasses. I’ve known enough capable-of-mayhem women in real life to know it’s definitely viable; Morgan’s even lightly based on somebody. The other stuff is a variety of horror styles. Sometimes I’ll try to go Ligotti-ish in tone (“Pray For Agatha, Burning In Hell”) or Lovecraftian (“We Will Meet On That Beautiful Shore”), or more classical ghost story (“Long Tall Sally,” “Rain Rain Go Away,” “The Nonsense,” “Shrouded in Rain”). Then there are some more extreme horror stories (“Bodies Not Recovered,” “The Night Is Filled With Maniacs,” “The 312 Wisteria Park Tapes,” “All The Angels Are Sleeping Now.”). A friend reading that last one said he had to set it aside and nerve himself up to keep going because the parking lot lady creeped him out more than he could handle. I was pretty happy about that, upsetting people is fun! The ending of “Some Kinda Hate” has bugged a few people, too. Yay! “Cousin Claude” had some Stephen King influence. I wanted to see if I could create the kind of dread he built around room 217 in The Shining. The answer is … nope, I can’t, because he’s Stephen freakin’ King, dagnabbit. But, it’s still good to try.

K&R: What’s next for you as a writer?

Z: I don’t know. Lately I’ve been wanting to use my time more to read than to write, and I’m lazy and going through a wave of misanthropy, so it’s hard to get motivated. But, I’m always writing something – silly stories in a journal, or chipping away at about a hundred different projects. I write by hand for first drafts, so my house is piled with unfinished things, everywhere. When I die whoever cleans it out will think I was Henry Darger or something (though hopefully not THAT crazy – yeah, it’s worth looking him up if you don’t know who he is… he was loopy, but productive!). I have shreds of short stories around, a chunk of a horror western, a big chunk of a novel about a cult taking over a town, another big chunk of a novel called Daisyland (it’s a LOT more disturbing than the title), and I’m constantly adding to a couple of post-apocalypse novels which are affectionately known as “the roadwarriorbullshit.” The biker chick from the AC/DC stories is in it, but after the bombs. Will I actually finish any of it? Probably. Sometimes I do. I have six or seven finished novels I’m too lazy to revise or try to submit anywhere. I work my day job too much. Anyway, I’ll always be writing, whether the rest of the world is in on it or not. 

K&R: What does “trashy fiction” mean to you, and what do you love about it?

Z: I’ve got two degrees in English so I can analyze Oliver Goldsmith and find the imagery in Moby Dick and such, and I do love classical literature (especially Victorian ghost stories – people really need to read as many of those as they can find, particularly M. R. James and E. F. Benson). But reading is still supposed to be fun. The Vicar of Wakefield is not fun. I don’t think people need that many “life lessons” from what they read; if they get some while being entertained, great, but it should entertain first or… why bother? That’s why a lot more people want to read Executioner #9: Vegas Vendetta or Crabs On The Rampage than they do The Aspern Papers or Silas Marner. I love the pulp era because… that was TV. Before television, people had little to do with their free time but read. I love TV and movies (my house is hoarded with DVDs) but I still love the idea of people spending their evenings reading. And a lot of what they read was pulp “trash.” Instead of watching Yellowstone or whatever, they’d be reading Westerns or The Spider or an issue of Black Mask or Weird Tales, using the TV in their heads. I love thinking about that. And a lot of the “trash” writers knew their craft better than more “respected” writers. Mickey Spillane always got sneered at, but sumbitch could build a story and slam you with dialogue so hard it’d leave a bruise. Edgar Rice Burroughs could go so deep purple prose-wise his books should be playing “Smoke on the Water,” but he could make you play along with the most preposterous ideas because the story’s so great. Who cares if Tarzan would never have really been able to learn to read a language he couldn’t speak? You’ll believe the guy can fight lions with a knife! A lot of Western writers who nobody reads anymore should be part of any good writing course. If you want to know how to construct a story, go find an old Lewis B. Patten novel. His stuff should be put back in print just so people can study it. Everything you need to know is in there. And horror, that’s almost ALL built on stuff people once considered “trash.” Even Library of America finally had to give up and put out a Lovecraft volume. Most of literature’s best stuff is horror and yet it’s never gotten respect. So, yeah, if anybody needs “permission,” I’ve got a B. A. and an M. A. in literature and I’m telling you, with all the authority granted to me by an institution of higher learning, go read some Rat Bastards books or some Richard Laymon or some Max Brand (actually, Brand’s writing reminds me of Dickens). Do not sneer at “trash” or feel guilty about reading it. There’s a lot of technique in it. It’s like death metal – if it sounds like noise to you that only means you don’t get it. Comic books are also good for you, too; that’s nothing but our era’s mythology. The past had Achilles and Thor, and we have Spider-Man and Wolverine. And still Thor, because Thor’s always cool. Really, anything that keeps people off of social media is gain! Yeah, social media’s the only thing I’ll tell you not to read…

K&R: Hit us with your own favourite “trashy” fiction recommendations!

Z: I snuck a bunch of those into the last question. I think more people should be reading old Westerns. Patten, Brand, Ray Hogan, Louis L’Amour, Wayne D. Overholser, Luke Short, Giles Lutz, Gordon Shirreffs, and especially Elmer Kelton… those guys could WRITE. Maybe it’s formula and “just a story” but it works. Crime stuff like David Goodis (another “trash” guy Library of America had to admit was great), Harry Whittington, Dan J. Marlowe. The Name of the Game Is Death will blow you away (also included in a Library of America volume). Orrie Hitt was considered a “smut peddler” (read him now and you’ll wonder where the smutty part’s supposed to be) but people are appreciating his craft now. Horror… well, don’t just collect those “paperbacks from Hell” because they became trendy, READ them. And those old “action series” books, I’m crazy about those. I got pretty obsessed, really, and collected all the Nick Carter books. So, those, the Executioner and all the rip-offs (Sharpshooter, Marksman, Revenger, Butcher) and the post-apocalyptic stuff – Doomsday Warrior, Last Ranger, Traveler, etc. Horror-wise I still love the great Mr. King, and Brian Keene’s really good, Adam Nevill is amazing… there’s a lot of stuff. Anything Valancourt is bringing back is going to be worth a look. And all those pulp folks shouldn’t be forgotten. Robert E. Howard and Robert Bloch will never waste your time.

K&R: If you’ve read the rest of the stories in Trash Tales, what’s your favourite, and why?

Z: I seldom read anthologies straight through – I like short stories as little breaks between novels – so I haven’t finished Trash Tales yet, but I’ve skipped around at random and liked everything so far. “Tomahawk” was really good, and “Ampersand” was one of the more unique ideas I’ve seen in a while. “Momma’s Good Silver” was a wise choice for an opener. I’m not usually crazy about werewolf stories, but Mitchell has a great writing style and drew me in. So far I haven’t seen any klunkers in the book, it’s great stuff, I’m proud to be amongst those folks.

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