Category Archives: Western Fiction

Contents Vol. 4 No. 4

Welcome to Volume Four, Number Four of Dime Pulp,
A Serial Pulp Fiction Magazine.

Die Like A Man, Thierry La Noque’s debut serial novel, is a story of a man who gives a friend a ride only to be pulled in deeper and deeper into the events surrounding the brutal murder of the daughter of a prominent businessman featuring hunky young wannabe private eye, Ray Philips.
Lydia Cheése (pronounced “Chase”) continues her mission to fly an unauthorized dirigible to Djibouti in Phyllis Huldarsdottir’s round-the-world steampunk adventure, Cheése Stands Alone.
Wayne Bruce survives his ordeal in the Southern Sahara and emerges as a new man with a new mission in Pierre Anton Taylor’s crimefighter drama, Just Coincidence.

Phyllis Huldarsdottir’s Cheése Stands Alone, the continuing adventures of Airship Commander Lydia Cheése (pronounced “Chase”) in the search for her anti-Clockwork Commonwealth renegade father, Commodore Jack, with the help Doctor Professor Jean-Pierre Serre-Pain, proprietor the Madame Ophelia’s Ophidiarium, a traveling snake show, and his associates, former circus strongman, Vlady, and Serpina, the snake girl. On the run from IOTA (the Investigative Office of The Admiralty), she has narrowly escapes capture by her nemesis, Chief Inspector Karla Kola, in Oldest Orleans, and now with the help of a young wannabe airship pilot, Pyare, must traverse the Central Massif to rendezvous with Serre-Pain and the dirigible that will take them on a mercy mission to HOAR (the Horn Of Africa Republics), base for the anti-Commonwealth ICERS. Read more of Cheése Stands Alone in Episode XV.

Pierre Anton Taylor’s dark crimefighting serial, Just Coincidence is about a privileged young man with the unremarkable name of Wayne Bruce who returns to the site where his father once had his business, a battery manufacturing plant, and where he often spent his childhood days hanging around the factory and the neighborhood. His return is haunted by the mysterious circumstances surrounding his father’s death and the vague feeling that his uncle is somehow involved. Appalled by the poverty and crime of the place he remembers fondly, he is moved to resolve the injustice of the socially marginalized and to wreak vengeance on those he believes are responsible for the death of his father. The backstory to his emergence as a crimefighter is revealed in Just Coincidence, Act Three, Scene I, Part 2

Die Like A Man, a brand new serial novel by Thierry La Noque, is a meta noir of a man who gives a friend a ride only to be pulled in deeper and deeper into the events surrounding the brutal murder of the daughter of a prominent businessman and the attempts to cover it up and place the blame on someone else. Ray Philips, a martial arts instructor, sometime event security, and bouncer working toward getting his private investigator’s license in a world where the private eye is quickly becoming an anachronism, is hired to find a missing husband, the famous crime novelist and infamous drunk, Stan Giordino by his petite pierced drug addicted wife, Stella. A stolen cache of drugs and money only complicates and implicates the wannabe detective, and puts him over his head and his life in danger. Not to mention that his girlfriend, Cissy, is dying of cancer. Die Like A Man III & Die Like A Man IV

FYI: Available for readers of Dime Pulp who may have missed a few issues or lost the thread of a serial, Dime Pulp Yearbook 21, featuring the novels (The Last Resort and Better Than Dead) and the short fiction (Hard Boiled Myth and Gone Missing) of Volume One’s 12 issues, is joined by Dime Pulp Yearbook 22, featuring the complete pulp Western, On The Road To Las Cruces, continuing episodes of a detective story, Better Than Dead, the opening chapters of new serial novels, Just Coincidence and Cheése Stands Alone, the short fiction of Hard Boiled Myth and Polka Dot Dress, as well as Dropping A Dime’s pithy pulp observations. Volume Two’s 10 issues are available for perusal in their entirety simply by clicking on the links in this paragraph or on the menu bar above. Dime Pulp Yearbook 23 is now available featuring a full year’s worth of Just Coincidence and Cheése Stands Alone, and the complete Better Than Dead novel, as well as the early chapters of Mark Ducharme’s gothic serial, Carriers.

If you’ve made it this far, click on the links above to read the entertaining serial contents of Volume 4, Number4!

—Perry O’Dickle, chief scribe
and word accountant

Contents Vol. 4 No. 3

May 10, 2024Crime Fiction, Crimefighter, Gothic, Pulp Fiction, Steampunk Fiction, Western FictionA Detective Story, A Don Coyote & Saundra Pansy Mystery, A Serial Fiction Magazine, Better Than Dead, books, Carriers, Cheese Stands Alone, Colin Deerwood, Crime Fiction, Crimefighter, Dime Pulp, Gothic, Hard Boiled Fiction, horror, Just Coincidence, Mark DuCharme, Mike Servente, Phyllis Huldarsdottir, Pierre Anton Taylor, Pulp Fiction, Steampunk, The Man From La Mirada Perdida, thrillerNuallain House, Publishers

Welcome to Volume Four, Number Three of Dime Pulp,
A Serial Pulp Fiction Magazine.

Die Like A Man, Thierry LaNoque’s debut serial novel, is a meta noir of a man who gives a friend a ride only to be pulled in deeper and deeper into the events surrounding a brutal murder, the daughter of a prominent businessman, and attempts to cover it up and place the blame on someone else. Drugs and money are involved in this second installment featuring La Noque’s young hunky wannabe private eye, Ray Philips. As well, Mark DuCharme ties up all the loose ends to bring his dark, sometimes humorous, gothic serial, Carriers, to its finale. Lydia Cheése (pronounced “Chase”) continues her mission to fly an unauthorized dirigible to Djibouti in Phyllis Huldarsdottir’s round-the-world steampunk adventure, Cheése Stands Alone. Wayne Bruce survives his ordeal in the Southern Sahara and emerges as a new man with a new mission in Pierre Anton Taylor’s crimefighter drama, Just Coincidence.

Mark DuCharme’s Carriers and it’s gothic air of shadowy creatures who might just be the living dead is a vampire novella with touches of black comedy and satirical bite, told from the perspective of its unreliable narrator and protagonist. Taking place during a “plague” that has been going on for two years in an unnamed city, dead bodies litter the streets, hallways, and homes. A corpse disposal company hires people to transport them to a facility at the edge of town with the very important stipulation that the bodies be delivered there before sundown. No one ever says why. Read the final installment of Carriers, Episodes XIII .

If you’ve made it this far, click on the links above to read the entertaining serial contents of Volume 4, Number3!

—Perry O’Dickle, chief scribe
and word accountant

Cheése Stands Alone XIV

May 10, 2024Crime Fiction, Gothic, Pulp Fiction, Steampunk Fiction, Western FictionAirship Commander, Cheese Stands Alone, Dirigibles, Frida the Fearless, Lydia Cheése, Pax Victoriana, Phyllis Huldarsdottir, Pulp Fiction, SteampunkNuallain House, Publishers

by Phyllis Huldarsdottir

Cast of Characters (Partial):

Captain Lydia Cheése (pronounced “Chase”), Airship Commander for Aerosud, a luxury liner airship company based out of São Paulo in the Empire of Brazil, who is searching for her father, Commodore Jack Cheése, an outlaw and antigovernmental rabble rouser.

Professor Doctor Jean-Pierre Serre-Pain, proprietor of Madame Ophelia’s Ophidiarium, a traveling snake show, who has abducted Lydia to get her to pilot an illegal unregistered airship to HOAR (the Horn Of Africa Republic) on a mission of mercy in exchange for helping her find her father.

Serpina, a young girl who serves as Serre-Pain’s assistant and snake handler and who is also a psychic Vessel.

Vlady, an older bearlike man also in the employ of Madame Ophelia’s Ophidiarium and a traveling circus strongman Lydia recognizes from her past.

Pyare, a young man with dreams of being an airship pilot, and member of LBFDS (the League Bousculier Francaise Du Sud) helping Lydia and Serpina rendezvous with Serre-Pain and Vlady at an illegal airship.

Emile Etugouda, poet, philosopher, world traveler, raconteur, and general all around know-it-all whose memory of an ancient epic poem helped Lydia, Serpina, and Pyare cross the Massif and on to their rendezvous in Autre Lyons.

Chief Inspector Karla Kola, head of the IOTA squad charged with capturing Commodore Jack Cheése and Lydia’s nemesis and pursuer.

Pax Victoriana, a period of peace imposed by the Clockwork Commonwealth and its enforcement arm, The Admiralty, dating from the beginning of Queen Victoria’s reign to the present for a total of 180 years which includes the TSR (Temporal Shift Realignment) of 56 PV (1893 AD) after which Commonwealth calendars where recalibrated to reflect Her Royal Majesty’s peaceful rule (following the devastation of the first Pandem and its resurgence 30 years later as Pandem II).

Chapter XX

Lydia stood in the wheelhouse of the airship like she was visiting an old friend, a very old friend. It was a text book reconstruction of the control panel, down to the mahogany framing, analog instruments, chrome highlights and gleaming brass, the outsized rudder wheel, elevator wheel and panel, altimeter, gas board, and engine telegraph dating back almost a hundred years. Pyare could barely constrain himself, a child in a museum, wanting to touch everything and make equivalences to what he knew of current airship dashboards with their plasma displays and their analogous functions. She was relieved by his apparent familiarity with procedures and that it wasn’t all braggadocio. She was going to require a second if they were to accomplish their mission. Pyare, who had accompanied them across the Massif, had decided to continue with them to North Africa. He had no reason to return to Old Orleans now that the gendarmes were after him. Apparently Leon had confessed to everything and exposed the organization’s network, naming names, his among them.

She shouldn’t have been surprised that Serre-Pain and Etugouda were acquainted. They were of a second Pandem generation and wore similar world weary expressions around their eyes. It was during their exchanges of when they had last crossed paths that her real identity was revealed. Not Odette Oday as her identity papers claimed, but Lydia Cheése, airship commander, who was to pilot their mission to Djibouti.

Etigouda had cocked an appraising eye at her and asked, “You’re not related to Nye Cheese, are you? The Queen’s Chancellor for a brief period during the period following 1906 current era, Pax Victoriana Year 69 or some such, and just ahead of the first BMI Pandemic. An obtuse character if there ever was one. He considered himself quite the philosopher but was actually completely mad. The Admiralty Board put an end to his conciliatory concessions with the powerful Romanovs over the administration of Eurasia and its contiguous states, especially in its rivalry with the Empire of China for the Independent Republic of North Pacific Archipelagos, or Manchatka, as it is commonly known.”

Of course she wasn’t. Her family name was pronounced “chase.” And she wasn’t going to get a word in edgewise. The old poet’s idea of a conversation was a monologue, preferably his.

Once they’d gained the sanctuary of the remote farmhouse with its massive stone barn carved into the hillside where the dirigible was penned, Lydia had set about the inspection of the airship, a medium sized transport. She had trained on similar rigs but none quite as old. The principles were the same.

Serre-Pain outlined the plan over the large chart table before their departure. They would be flying unauthorized through the commercial airspace and subject to interception by the customs authorities. It all depended on timing. A Russair cargo dirigible of similar vintage was making its way down on the opposite side of the Massif. He pointed to the map and where the monitoring stations were along their flight path. The one to the south of Autre Lyons was the one they would have to deceive. All cargo transports were required to keep to a strictly enforced schedule as well as elevation. If the Russair transport could be delayed at their last cargo stop, they would have a narrow window to impersonate its flight signature and fool the monitors. That would take some calculation.

Lydia had quickly worked it out, estimating the airspeed of that class of dirigible, especially laden, taking into consideration the time of day, and what upswells of wind current could be expected descending into the littoral plain. It had been a while since she had actually had to work out a flight plan—her staff on the Orinoco II had usually taken care of the navigation requirements, but it was something she felt perfectly confident doing.

“Once we get underway, we’ll have to average 50 knots to meet the point where the airship can intercept the flight path undetected,” she pointed to the spot on the map. “Our cruising altitude will be 200 meters unless we encounter cloud cover. Once we make it past the last monitoring station we will be into the autonomous zone of the Ligurian League, and by then, out of IOTA’s effective jurisdiction.”

The grizzled old snake doctor nodded his head with approval. “But their agents are everywhere and we must remain discrete. Once we determine that the delay has been effected, we can untether.” At Lydia’s questioning look, he added, “We will depend on Serpina for that confirmation.”

Orphaned, a refugee, Serpina had joined them when she was very young, and she had immediately bonded with the mute bear.

And it was true, the young woman had been unusually pensive in the preparation for boarding and getting underway. She had never been on an airship she had confessed to Lydia once the reality of the prospect had been confirmed. And Lydia, too, had sensed the rivalry for Vlady’s attention. The old strongman had once been her hero, and now it was obvious from their affection for each other, that he was Serpina’s as well.

Her reunion with Vlady had been a little awkward because he had been Samson Trismegistus when she knew him as a child, the strongman in the circus in which her ballerina mother had performed as a tightrope walker. Now he was pleased that she had finally realized his identity. He was still a bear of a man, mute as he had not been before. She had remembered his voice as a rough growl. But he had acknowledge with a sage expression that he knew who she was. And he admitted with a nod when she recalled that he had saved her mother and her from the fire in the arena tent set by vindictive clowns and carnies. Serpina had finally spoken up. “He is very happy to be reunited with you.” To which the large man assented.

Lydia understood then the bond between the two of them. Those thousand unasked questions, the ones she wanted to pose, were answered in the conversations during the ride up to the estate of a local landlord and the location of the clandestine dirigible. The six legged steam beetle was a farm tractor used for hauling hay wagons. Serre-Pain had switched carts when he suspected that Leon might be induced to reveal their plan.

From what she could gather from her inquiries of Serre-Pain, and somewhat reluctantly, Serpina, Vlady had been tortured by the Tsar’s secret police, the Oprichniki, for being an enemy of the Russian Empire. After the fire in the big top, he had returned to his hometown in the trans-Caucasus where his mother lay dying. Because he had lived outside the Empire during his travels with the circus, he was accused of being a spy and had had his tongue cauterized with a hot iron. He escaped from the prison camp where he had been left for dead, and made his way across the Carpathians with a group of refugees from Kazakhstan. He chanced upon Dr. Serre-Pain and the Original Madame Ophelia’s Ophidiarium with the original Madame Ophelia, on the outskirts of Sarajevo. They were being set upon by a gang of Ottoman thugs, and he had intervened. Serre-Pain had been on a mission to provide antivenom to save the life of a young man who had been bitten by a horned viper, the deadliest in the region. From then on, he had accompanied the snake doctor across vast stretches of the post pandemic continent, skirting the BMI devastations and avoiding the authorities. Orphaned, a refugee, Serpina had joined them when she was very young, and she had immediately bonded with the mute bear. It was only later that they had discovered her receptivity as what is commonly called a “vessel.” And that she was implicitly sensitive to Vlady’s frequencies and could read him like a mood ring. In many ways, he was a beacon onto which she could home.

Lydia understood also that she would not be the one to get between Serpina and Vlady, and that Pyare didn’t realize that he might. And considering their latest trek, she was beginning to wonder who was leading whom.

Chapter XXI

Lydia gladly shed the rough cloth of the burnoose when she was given the uniform of a Russair airship captain with the gold and red piping, the square billed cap and its glossy green visor. At least she no longer looked like a refugee, although the uniform was decidedly out of date, like much of the Russair operation. Out of his country togs and in his own Russair uniform, Pyare presented an impressive figure and looked the part of an airship pilot. She had given Vlady a quick lesson on the engine telegraph in the engine room. With Pyare at the helm, she would be free to respond as navigator, rigger, comm operator, and engineer if the need arose. Her crew on her Aerosud luxair, Oricono II, consisted of a minimum of fifty specialists, not counting the passenger attendants, and kitchen staff, but a small transport such as this usually operated with a dozen airshipmen. Serpin, the Doctor, and the poet would stay out of sight in the comm room in the keel until they had made it past the final monitoring station.

Until then they would have to wait for the acknowledgement from Serpina that the Russair ship had been delayed. And Etugouda had not stopped talking, jumping from topic to topic, like a flat stone skipping across a still pond. How he had landed in the Massif, escaping from the displeasure of the Spanish King’s family for a poem he had delivered to the Court. He had found himself penniless and at the mercy of the clans. They were descendants of Fourierists and fugitive Communards who mingled with the locals who were themselves much later descendants of persecuted Huguenots. It was a world outside the law of the Clockwork Commonwealth. They were missing a fool in their midst, he explained, someone who could utter the forbidden of what they all thought. As a poet, he was perfectly suited for the job. He had survived for the last five years on scraps and the generosity of the frequenters of the Lion & Bear, taking up residence in an abandoned shepherd’s stone shelter. His life at the Spanish court was another story. And he thought that he might never return to the normal world of hubris and ambition that his profession required.

“And when you three showed up, I understood that you were an omen, more than met the eye, and the passport out of my exile. But if you must know, it was fated that my friend Jean-Pierre and I should be reunited. It seems like a thousand seasons have passed since we were face to face, and the world has changed since then, drastically. Before I landed in the Spanish Court, I was travelling in the Americas with a group of aristo vagabonds from Greater London when we just barely missed the resumption of the Pan-Am war. The United Slave State Republics led by the Republic of Texas were making claims on Ultra Mezzistotec territory south of the Rio Grande, again, and of course the Bush Whacker Rebellion within their own member states. It wasn’t the only upheaval in the former United States and Territories. And now there is more trouble brewing, this time from the tribes of the Dakota Prairie Republic, if what Jean-Pierre is telling me is true, and I have no reason to doubt him. They’re claiming that since the central government in the District of Columbia is no longer a government entity, that the treaties they signed with the then United States almost two hundred years ago were no longer binding. It is understandable that they might want to leave territory devastated by black mold and the attendant anomalous weather for what they claim as their homeland. They are seeking the return of their lands from the southern Appalachians to the Mississippi. Needless to say the Republic of Tennessee Georgia, known to everyone as ROTNG, and its citizens have rejected the idea. I remember when this claim was first broached in their pleas for support from the Admiralty right after Pandem II and during a meeting of the newly formed Conglomeration Of Affiliated Nations of which the USSR was not a part”

The snake doctor looked directly at her and nodded gravely. It was time to spark up.

Lydia had had it with the self-inflated gasbag. She was in no mood to listen to prattle about current affairs or world history, especially when it was beginning to veer into speculation and conspiracy theories. She stared at the ceiling of the observation room at the rear of the gondola. Above her in their rigid shell were the gas bags she was concerned about. Unlike the older models that used hydrogen, this airship had been retrofitted with the less volatile biogen gas cells, standard for at least the last half century, if she remembered her history correctly. Biogen pellets were mixed with water at the base of the cells which caused the release of the biogas that inflated the biosilk envelopes. They had taken on enough ballast to mimic a laden transport, and the bug drives were primed to bring the H2O solution to a boil, and off-gassing the steam to spin the two outboard turbines that would propel the airship. The bug drives, as the engines were called, operated on Euler’s theoretical equation of a relation between the velocity, pressure and density of a moving fluid using a system based on the Rayleigh-Benard convection dynamic. Or so she remembered from Basic Aeronautics, a class that was guaranteed to put her to sleep, the drone of the lecturer’s voice that stupefying.

Etugouda’s voice was having a similar effect and she snapped her eyes open and shook her head. Now he was going on about the reason behind the first Black Mold Infestation, often referred to as BMI One or Pandem I, that had killed millions of people and devastated vast tract of the Northern Hemisphere.

“Many would like to place the blame on the Admiralty for the epidemic, the first one. I don’t directly believe that they were behind it, but they did capitalize on it to consolidate their power into the Clockwork Commonwealth. What was the cause of this poison that was sown into our soil, killing the plant life and its attendant biosystem? Historically we know that in the current era 1906 or Pax Victoriana Year 69, if you wish, the earth’s orbit passed through the tail of a gigantic comet, a flaming planetoid. The resultant diffusion of the meteoric matter through the aether sheathed the northern part of the globe with its alien presence, effacing the existing flora and fauna. Many believe that it was an invasion from another world that sought to extinguish us. Scientists, in what was then known as the Prussian Alliance, before it became a part of Greater London, developed a biocide that neutralized the black mold and stopped it’s advance. Unfortunately the solution had the unexpected side effect of being a petrophage, and before. . . .”

Now Lydia was in her history class at the Air Academy, another lecture course that had bored her to tears. She was about to counter what, to her, sounded like ICER propaganda when she noticed that Serpina had crossed the room to say something to Serre-Pain. The snake doctor looked directly at her and nodded gravely. It was time to spark up.

Next Time: Citily and the Republic of Corsardinia

Contents Vol. 4 No. 2

March 24, 2024Crime Fiction, Gothic, Pulp Fiction, Steampunk Fiction, Western FictionA Detective Story, A Don Coyote & Saundra Pansy Mystery, A Serial Fiction Magazine, Better Than Dead, books, Carriers, Cheese Stands Alone, Colin Deerwood, Crime Fiction, Crimefighter, Dime Pulp, Gothic, Hard Boiled Fiction, horror, Just Coincidence, Mark DuCharme, Mike Servente, Phyllis Huldarsdottir, Pierre Anton Taylor, Pulp Fiction, Steampunk, The Man From La Mirada Perdida, thrillerNuallain House, Publishers

Welcome to Volume Four, Number Two of Dime Pulp,
A Serial Pulp Fiction Magazine.

Dime Pulp debuts a new serial novel, Die Like A Man, by Thierry La Noque, in Volume 4, Number 2. It is a meta noir story of a man who gives a friend a ride only to be pulled in deeper and deeper into the events surrounding a brutal murder of the daughter of a prominent businessman and the attempts to cover it up and place the blame on someone else. Drugs and money are involved in this initial outing of La Noque’s wannabe private eye, Ray Philips. As well, Mark DuCharme’s gothic Carriers is quickly approaching its denouement. Lydia Cheése (pronounced “Chase”) continues her mission to fly an unauthorized dirigible to Djibouti in Phyllis round the world steampunk adventure, Cheése Stands Alone. And in Just Coincidence, Wayne Bruce survives his ordeal in the Southern Sahara and emerges as a new man in Pierre Anton Taylor’s crimefighter drama.

Mark DuCharme’s Carriers and it’s gothic air of shadowy creatures who might just be the living dead is a vampire novella with touches of black comedy and satirical bite, told from the perspective of its unreliable narrator and protagonist. Taking place during a “plague” that has been going on for two years in an unnamed city, dead bodies litter the streets, hallways, and homes. A corpse disposal company hires people to transport them to a facility at the edge of town with the very important stipulation that the bodies be delivered there before sundown. No one ever says why. Read more in the latest installment of Carriers, Episodes X-XII .

Die Like A Man, a brand new serial novel by Thierry La Noque, is a meta noir story of a man who gives a friend a ride only to be pulled in deeper and deeper into the events surrounding the brutal murder of the daughter of a prominent businessman and the attempts to cover it up and place the blame on someone else. Ray Philips, a martial arts instructor, sometime event security, and bouncer working toward getting his private investigator’s license in a world where the private eye is quickly becoming an anachronism, is hired to find a missing husband, the famous crime novelist and infamous drunk, Stan Giordino by his petite pierced drug addicted wife, Stella. A stolen cache of drugs and money only complicates and implicates the wannabe detectives, and puts him over his head and his life in danger. Not to mention that his girlfriend, Cissy, is dying of cancer. The beginning to this meta noir begins here: Die Like A Man 1&2

FYI: Available for readers of Dime Pulp who may have missed a few issues or lost the thread of a serial, Dime Pulp Yearbook 21, featuring the novels (The Last Resort and Better Than Dead) and the short fiction (Hard Boiled Myth and Gone Missing) of Volume One’s 12 issues, is joined by Dime Pulp Yearbook 22, featuring the complete pulp Western, On The Road To Las Cruces, continuing episodes of a detective story, Better Than Dead, the opening chapters of new serial novels, Just Coincidence and Cheése Stands Alone, the short fiction of Hard Boiled Myth and Polka Dot Dress, as well as Dropping A Dime’s pithy pulp observations. Volume Two’s 10 issues are available for perusal in their entirety by simply clicking on the links in this paragraph or on the menu bar above. Dime Pulp Yearbook 23 will be available in early February ’24 as part of the annual archival review.

If you’ve made it this far, click on the links above to read the entertaining serial contents of Volume 4, Number 2!

—Perry O’Dickle, chief scribe
and word accountant

Cheése Stands Alone XIII

March 24, 2024Crime Fiction, Gothic, Pulp Fiction, Steampunk Fiction, Western FictionAirship Commander, Cheese Stands Alone, Dirigibles, Frida the Fearless, Lydia Cheése, Pax Victoriana, Phyllis Huldarsdottir, Pulp Fiction, SteampunkNuallain House, Publishers

by Phylis Huldarsdottir

Cast of Characters (Partial):

Serpina, a young girl who serves as Serre-Pain’s assistant and snake handler and who is also a psychic Vessel.

Vlady, an older bearlike man also in the employ of Madame Ophelia’s Ophidiarium and a traveling circus strongman Lydia recognizes from her past.

Chief Inspector Karla Kola, head of the IOTA squad charged with capturing Commodore Jack Cheése and Lydia’s nemesis and pursuer.

Chapter XVIII

Lydia had had enough. The old man, the poet Emile Etugouda was trying her patience. Not that she wasn’t thankful that he was helping them evade the clan militias by offering a shortcut to their destination, but he wouldn’t shut up. He talked about himself endlessly, the famous authors he knew, as well as his friends in high places. Lydia recognized some of the names he’d mentioned from the Emperor’s court in Rio Rio, but they were mostly from another era, her grandfather’s generation. She had never heard of the poets he mentioned, but that was no surprise. Even in her schooling, she had never been interested in the sentimental and fantastical, the frivolous. And for all she knew, what he was claiming could be a complete fiction.

The first instance that warned her of things to come was his forgetfulness. And since the trail they were following to get to Autre Lyons depended on his remembering of the epic poem, La Reccourci, a good memory was essential. They had traveled a couple of miles before Etugouda realized that they had taken a wrong turn because he had conflated “hair” with “lair of the Maiden” which was actually a detail from a completely different epic altogether. And from there they had veered off in another direction only to be confronted by a sheer wall of water at the top of the winding stream along whose banks they had trudged with increasing difficulty.

That was frustrating enough, but combined with his insistence on reading their auras and relating what the colors said about their personalities, it was grating on her nerves. Here they were desperate to reconnect with Professor Serre-Pain, and their guide, such as he was, wanted to play parlor games. He’d first fixed on Pyare as it was his suspicion he wished to allay, and because a male, make an ally.

“But enough about myself. How about you, my boy, what is your name? You seem to be the least out of place of your trio. Are you from these parts?”

“Pyare,” the young man spoke cautiously, “Pyare Aucarray. I grew up in the suburbs of Old Orleans. I worked in the fields in the valley, summers when I was going to school. We would often venture into the Massif to go hunting or swim in the streams.”

“Yes, yes, I sense that about you. Rugged orange, adventurous, with a hint of yellow to underscore your easygoing nature but also energetic red highlights. You are at peak spectrum. You have great potential and I would assume that you have many talents that are just waiting to be put to the test. Have you ever considered flying?”

Pyare looked askance as if he’d been asked a trick question. “How do you mean?”

“As an airship pilot, of course, you are just the caliber of man that would do well in the Navair trade.”

Pyare threw Lydia a triumphant look. “Exactly.”

Lydia suppressed her guffaw. “An airship pilot, imagine that,” she said at Serpina’s snigger. “Had we known, we could have flown to Autre Lyons instead of bumping into dead ends and following false nonexistent trails.”

Etugouda ignored her sarcasm and turned his attention to Serpina. “And what did you say your name was again?”

Serpina threw a glance at Lydia before answering. “I didn’t say, but it is Addy.”

“Yes, yes, Addy, there is something about you I can’t quite place.” The old poet ran a hand over his large mustache. “ There is a bit of the blue about you, a mysteriousness, a depth unfathomable, a spirituality. And a green that speaks of a garrulous nature. Also an underlying yellow, much like our young man here.” He smiled as Serpina’s cheeks pinked, and nodded, “As I suspected.”

When he looked at Lydia his eyebrows drew together and shaded his fierce discerning eyes. “But you, I cannot fathom. Your papers say your name is Odette Oday, if I heard correctly, and yet somehow that does not fit. And your credentials say you are a third class worker, but that is belied by your appearance and demeanor. As Conan at the Lion & Bear said, you are too shiny, and indeed you are. You radiate a dark red, almost purple, which mean you are not only determined but spontaneous, grounded but not easily cowed by convention. There are undulations of orange which I take to be of a cautious nature. As well some green around the edges that would indicate someone who is comfortable commanding others.”

Lydia returned the old poet’s gaze. There was a smugness about his pronouncements that galled her, something that she encountered mostly from men who were always in a hierarchal mode, like somehow they knew better or were better. Her boss and nemesis, Commodore Crenshaw, at Aerosud Headquarters, held a similar attitude toward her and the other female airship pilots. Airship commander was still a very much male dominated occupation. There was also something decidedly archaic about the old man, as if he belonged to another era. His clothing was a patchwork of styles, the tilted hat, the bulky scarf draped around his shoulders like a mantle of office, and the rough canvas jacket of many pockets, a faded blue. His trousers, patched at the knees, were cinched at the waist by a wide purple sash. The cuffs, turned up at the ankles, offered a glimpse of dark gnarled toes shod in sandals. A sturdy staff in one hand and the dark satchel slung over the other shoulder marked someone long experienced in travelling afoot.

“Your assessments of our personalities are entertaining and diverting, Monsieur Etugouda, but so far we seem to be taking one step forward and two steps back, and you have not brought us any closer to Autre Lyons. As for the palette of colors you ascribed to me, their combination would not be the most complimentary. Are you saying my aura is muddy?”

“Again, your wit distinguishes you from who you appear to be,” the old poet chortled, “And you are right to be skeptical. Your impatience is understandable but not entirely correct.” He pointed to the water cascading down the side of the gorge. “This waterfall is the Maiden’s hair of the poem. The next verse instructs us to push the hair aside to speak into her ear and ask for her protection and guidance.”

Lydia glanced up at the roaring falls and then at Etugouda as if to say, “and just how are we going to do that?”

Serpina had gone ahead. “I think I see a path up to the ledge above.” She was pointing up the sheer incline. “There, up there to the left, there seems to be a gap!” she insisted.

“A gap,” the poet smiled mischievously, “Something like an ear, perhaps? An orifice?”

Lydia followed where Serpina’s finger was pointing. “How are we going to get up there? We’re not mountain goats.”

Pyare proved that that he was true to his colors, energetic and adventuresome, by ducking through the underbrush to the base of the escarpment. The others, followed with Lydia bringing up the rear.

As if a natural feature of the landscape, a faintly discernable narrow track ran up the face of the cliff at an oblique angle. “Ah,” Etigouda exclaimed, “the nape of her neck will lead you to the lobe of her ear, as the poems says!”

Pyare had already started climbing cautiously, placing a tenuous hold on the craggy face of the sheer cliff and a careful foot on the narrow jutting edge. Once around a slight bend, the path appeared less treacherous although the roaring fall of water and the mist it raised was daunting enough. Wrapped in a cloak, Serpina’s lithe young frame seemed not to be troubled by the narrowness of the path. Etugouda glanced over his shoulder at Lydia before starting up. Lydia’s eyes traveled the path mapping its contours to the shaded terminus near the top of the falls. She looked at her feet as if willing them to begin their ascent. I’m an airship commander, she thought to herself, why am I spending so much time on the ground. She was out of her element. She needed to be in the air.

Chapter XIX

Lydia stood alone, off to one side of her companions, and gazed across the valley and at the air traffic in the sky above it. She was looking at the north south commercial air corridor up from Autre Lyons. Dirigibles, rigs and semi rigs, private silrigs as the Self-Inflatable Long Range Gliders were known, and even a few solid shell low altitude maneuverable dirigibles called flitters, usually in the service of the authorities, flecked the horizon like so many large dark birds. Lydia felt pangs of longing at the sight of them. She had not been at the helm of an airship in almost a month. A strong wind pushed the tall grass of the hillside where she was standing and tugged at the edges of her burnoose. South, she assumed was the direction of Autre Lyons.

The epic poem had been right she had to grudgingly admit. And she’d been prepared to give Etugouda his due but for the fact that he was too busy expounding on facets of the poem and how it reflected the geography far more ancient than the poem itself. And that this path had been used by humans and animals for tens of thousands of years to travel across the Massif to the valley below which was why water nymphs figure so prominently in the ancient local folklore because they were recognized as the source of life and regeneration. And on and on like a man in love with what he was saying, he kept up his chatter even in the roar of the waterfall as they passed under it and on up a narrow cleft to the crest of the ridge and the grassy rolling hills below. Or maybe their guide had known of the shortcut all along and the epic poem was merely a fanciful charade. That had yet to be determined.

At the forefront of Lydia’s thinking was how to make their way to the urban center and what to do once they got there. They were all in the same mess, it was no longer just about her flight from the scrutiny of IOTA to a safe refuge in Rio Rio and the court of the Empire of Brazil. She would honor her agreement with the snake doctor and pilot his clandestine airship to Djibouti and the capitol of ICER conspiracists. The other pressing concern was her hunger. That was proving to be a big distraction. And did nothing to improve her humor.

In the distance among a cluster of trees at the edge of the grass fields, the angled arrangement of earthen roof tiles was discernable. A dwelling would indicate that some kind of road or thoroughfare might be nearby. Serpina was already making her way down the slope in that direction and Lydia naturally fell in behind her. The grass slapped against her thighs and she stumbled over the loose uneven ground. She glanced back at Pyare whose strides soon overtook her and brought him up beside Serpina. Etugouda struggled with the descent, one hand holding his hat in place, his satchel slung over his shoulder bouncing on his hip, staff a third leg.

Lydia scramble up a little rise in the hillside at the top of which Pyare and Serpina had stopped. Below them was a double rut leading down. In the distance she heard faintly what sounded like a steam engine accompanied by the sound of machinery. Etugouda’s labored breathing made her turn and extend her hand to grasped his and pull him up. His moustache widened in a smile reflected in the twinkle of his eyes. “Not so muddy,” he rasped as he reached the top.

Already Serpina was following the dusty rut, moving determinedly, almost possessed, Pyare on her heels with a concerned frown. Lydia had little choice but to chase after them, leaving the old man to make his own way down. At one point beneath an arc of oaks, the road opened into a wide obviously well-traveled stretch. Serpina increased her pace to a steady jog, her mouth set in grim determination, eyes intent on the road ahead, a hound on a scent. She was oblivious to Etugouda’s entreaties to wait or Pyare’s alarmed appeals that she tell him why or what she was doing. At the sight of a bend in the road ahead, the young girl started a sprint, the flounce of her long skirt held high so as to not impede her speed.

Lydia picked up her pace to a run, matching her stride to Pyare’s. She rounded the bend at his shoulder. Ahead she could see Serpina racing toward an antique six legged steam beetle attached to a large wagon. Two figures were standing next to the multilegged contraption from the pre-Pandem II years, the exhaust stack sending up little gray puffs of smoke. Serpina extended her arms as she reached them.

And Lydia laughed, stopping in her tracks to catch her breath. She recognized the two men, one tall and lanky, and the other, bear-like, stocky and wide. It was Jean-Pierre Serre-Pain and Vlady. And as she followed Serpina up to them, she caught Vlady’s wide grin. She had so much to talk to him about, so many questions. If only he could talk. The Professor’s kind eyes smiled at her, at her relief and exhilaration.

She turned as the old poet, gasping and wheezing, came up behind her. The look on his face was one of complete astonishment, an expression she would have never expected from the old claven, as know-it-alls are often called. She heard Serre-Pain announce his own surprise, “Emile Etugouda?” To which their guide replied, “Serre-Pain, I should have known.”

Next Time: Flight Of The Long Bird

Contents Vol. 4 No. 1

January 30, 2024Crime Fiction, Gothic, Pulp Fiction, Steampunk Fiction, Western FictionA Detective Story, A Don Coyote & Saundra Pansy Mystery, A Serial Fiction Magazine, Better Than Dead, books, Carriers, Cheese Stands Alone, Colin Deerwood, Crime Fiction, Crimefighter, Dime Pulp, Gothic, Hard Boiled Fiction, horror, Just Coincidence, Mark DuCharme, Mike Servente, Phyllis Huldarsdottir, Pierre Anton Taylor, Pulp Fiction, Steampunk, The Man From La Mirada Perdida, thrillerNuallain House, Publishers

Welcome to Volume Four, Number One of Dime Pulp,
A Serial Pulp Fiction Magazine.

The new year at Dime Pulp begins with the return of Carriers by Mark DuCharme and it’s gothic air of shadowy creatures who might just be the living dead. Carriers is a vampire novella with touches of black comedy and satirical bite, and is told from the perspective of its unreliable narrator and protagonist, Johnny. It takes place during a “plague” that has been going on for two years in an unnamed city. Dead bodies litter the streets, hallways, and homes. A corpse disposal company hires people like Johnny to transport them to a facility at the edge of town with the very important stipulation that the bodies be delivered there before sundown. No one ever says why. Read more in the latest installment of Carriers, Episodes VIII-IX .

Also returning to the start Volume 4 off on the right foot are Dime Pulp regular authors Pierre Anton Taylor and Phyllis Huldarsdottir with Phyllis’s steampunk adventure, and Perre’s crimefighter fiction, Just Coincidence.

Phyllis Huldarsdottir returns with Cheése Stands Alone, the continuing adventures of Airship Commander Lydia Cheése (pronounced “Chase”) in the search for her anti-Clockwork Commonwealth renegade father, Commodore Jack, with the help Doctor Professor Jean-Pierre Serre-Pain, proprietor the Madame Ophelia’s Ophidiarium, a traveling snake show, and his associates, former circus strongman, Vlady, and Serpina, the snake girl. On the run from IOTA (the Investigative Office of The Admiralty), she has narrowly escapes capture by her nemesis, Chief Inspector Karla Kola, in Oldest Orleans, and now with the help of a young wannabe airship pilot, Pyare, must traverse the Central Massif to rendezvous with Serre-Pain and the dirigible that will take them on a mercy mission to HOAR (the Horn Of Africa Republics), base for the anti-Commonwealth ICERS. Read more of Cheése Stands Alone in Episode XII.

Also returning for the 2024 inaugural issue is Dropping A Dime, the editor’s pithy commentary on pulp fiction, this time asking the vital question What Is It About Poets and Pulp?

FYI: Available for readers of Dime Pulp who may have missed a few issues or lost the thread of a serial, Dime Pulp Yearbook 21, featuring the novels (The Last Resort and Better Than Dead) and the short fiction (Hard Boiled Myth and Gone Missing) of Volume One’s 12 issues, is joined by Dime Pulp Yearbook 22, featuring the complete pulp Western, On The Road To Las Cruces, continuing episodes of a detective story, Better Than Dead, the opening chapters of new serial novels, Just Coincidence and Cheése Stands Alone, the short fiction of Hard Boiled Myth and Polka Dot Dress, as well as Dropping A Dime’s pithy pulp observations. Volume Two’s 10 issues are available for perusal in their entirety by simply clicking on the links in this paragraph or on the menu bar above. Dime Pulp Yearbook 23 will be available in early February ’24 as part of the annual archival review.

If you’ve made it this far, click on the links above to read the entertaining serial contents of Volume 4, Number 1!

—Perry O’Dickle, chief scribe
and word accountant

Just Coincidence: Interlude I

January 30, 2024Crime Fiction, Gothic, Pulp Fiction, Steampunk Fiction, Western FictionA Dark Knight, Crime Fiction, Crimefighter, Just Coincidence, Pierre Anton Taylor, Pulp FictionNuallain House, Publishers

by Pierre Anton Taylor

The faint smell of tear gas greeted them as they stepped out of their lodging at the old colonial hotel and into the heat of early day. There were two Land Rovers parked in the road. One of them was their transport, the other was for their armed escort. There had been demonstrations the previous day in the capitol of Bamako, the radio had announced. Government troops had fired on protesting students and there were reports of casualties. A smaller demonstration in Timbuktu had been dispersed in the twilight hours. The hotel manager assured them that it was just a minor disturbance. Disgruntled youths, he’d explained. They were headed north into the desert’s edge, the Sahel.

Wayne Bruce had accompanied the director of the BATS Lab, Doctor Alfred Fledermann, to the Republic of Mali and the ancient city of Timbuktu on a fact finding mission. Fledermann was retiring and had taken on the job of mentoring Wayne into the responsibilities of the position. It was no secret that the director would have preferred someone with a scientific background to oversee the Lab, not a tabloid fodder daredevil. Yet he was loyal to the old man, Wallace Bruce, who had believed in him as a callow young researcher and appointed him to head the Bruce Battery Works R&D division decades earlier. If it were any consolation, young Bruce was intelligent, and serious, if not a little too earnest. There was the shadow of a cape about him.

The previous evening, in the lounge of the hotel, they had met with the man who would be their guide, a Frenchman named Roland Brebeuf, a holdover from the old colonial days who knew the terrain and the sparse population that peopled it. There were was lithium to be mined in the south, but Fledermann wasn’t interested in lithium. He was after diatomite. Brebeuf had been incredulous. Sand?

There is sand, and there is silica. There are many types of sands and sources, from minerals to vertebrate excretion, Alfred had explained before they’d flown to Africa. Think of the ocean floor as one large litterbox as well as a graveyard. Most beach sand is a combination of rock, bone, and fish excrement. Diatomite is a peculiar type of sand made from microscopic fossilized algae millions of years old. The location of this silica deposit was once part of a vast shallow inland sea whose shore had been the grasslands that were now the Sahara. That’s where they were going.

Wayne was a little young to get excited about sand, but he accepted the scientist’s word that this particular silica had potential for producing a distinctive kind of glass that would be beneficial to Bruce Enterprise. Fledermann had developed a process that gave the compound unique properties advantageous in light harvesting. The future lay in solar energy he’d insisted, no matter what anyone said. “He who controls the production of batteries controls the world. After all, once you’ve harvested the energy of those photons, where are you going to store them? Batteries, of course.” Of course, that succinctly summed up the Bruce Enterprise mission.

Missing his accustomed foil, Brebeuf had hurled an invective at Fledermann. “You wanted sand! There’s your blasted sand!” pointing in the direction of the stranded vehicle.

They would have to be on their guard on this expedition. Brebeuf had warned that there were bandits to the north, antigovernment militias, Tuaregs. As the winding road rose up into the mottled sienna scrub lands sparsely wooded with windshaped acacia, they passed men and donkeys laden with spindly desiccated branches to be sold as fire wood in town. Wayne looked back at the mud and earth edifices receding in the distance. This whole world was made of sand. And discounting the modern accouterments, he marveled that this had been a way of life for centuries, millennia, a place whose environment had shifted from semi tropical to the brittle savannahs of shrubs and anemic grasses. It was a dry eviscerated soil that would not support much life. But at one time it had. And the people who inhabited the Sahel had learned to bend and survive, adapt to the geological shift.

Once they left the main track, passing through a village that was not much more than sticks and mud and stretches of blue canopied shelters, their progress was slowed by the rough going. The driver, a black man with the welts of scarification across his cheeks, argued with Brebeuf about which rise to take and which wadis to follow. Some of it was in French which Wayne could understand, but otherwise the heated exchange was a spitfire of patois that was much too fast for him. It was like having an old married couple in the front seat. And it could be amusing until it wasn’t. By then the heat of day had intensified. Although most of their effort was to try to stay seated, the exertion made then sweat profusely.

A wrong turn had landed them in a bowl, a dry depression that with an occasional rain became a watering hole. The sides were steep and repeated attempts to climb out had only dug the rear wheels deeper into the soft sand. The driver, whose name was Youssouf, and Brebeuf berated each other all the while the three of them, including elderly Fledermann, set their shoulders to the back of the Rover while their escorts watched from the side of the crater having stopped just in time to avoid the same mistake. They found the drama between the driver and the guide quite entertaining and added their own jibes and taunts. One must have struck a nerve and which caused Youssouf to climb up to the rim where they were standing and confront one of the armed men. Brebeuf had scrambled up the embankment after him, waving his arms to try to defuse the tension, all the while offering mollifying words. There ensued a frantic parlay that eventually resulted in a calming of the hostilities but with the escort telling them they could pack sand, and driving away.

The sun was almost directly overhead and to continue was to only invite heat stroke. Their vehicle offered little shelter and captured the heat like a tin roof. The contention between driver and guide continued but nervously subdued. They of course blamed each other for their predicament. Brebeuf led them to a spindly acacia some distance from the fissure that had swallowed the Rover. They would have to wait out the heat of the day before putting their backs to getting the Rover out of the ravine. In the meantime, Youssouf would head back to the encampment they had passed a dozen or so miles back and try to recruit some help. The heat had visible effect on Fledermann. Wayne had erected a canopy under the acacia from a tattered tarp in the boot of the Rover. It was an unrelentingly hot, the scorching air frying sinuses with every breath, searing the lungs, the shade from the acacia hardly worthy of its name. They had a reserve of water and some food which Brebeuf advised to ration. The supplies for their expedition were in the Rover the armed escort had driven off in. There was no telling how long they would stuck.

Missing his accustomed foil, Brebeuf had hurled an invective at Fledermann. “You wanted sand! There’s your blasted sand!” pointing in the direction of the stranded vehicle. Supine, Fledermann panted, licking his lips, eyes closed, head turned to one side. “Something is not right,” he breathed. Wayne had given him shallow sips from his canteen. “This is not the way it was supposed to happen,” the old man groaned. Wayne had tried to make Albert as comfortable as possible in the oppressive heat that seemed to be squeezing the life out of him. The horizon shimmered in silent exhaustion. Nothing stirred in the feral landscape. It sounded like an echo at first, the gunshot coming from a distance. Brebeuf had stood rigid as if he had been hit, his hand to his throat. He had given Wayne a quick furtive glance before he’d run off in the direction his driver had gone. “Youssouf!” he called out repeatedly, stumbling in the burning dust.

With Brebeuf gone, he’d been left to care for Dr. Fledermann. He’d only carried a small rucksack for his camera and extra film. The remainder of his gear was gone. Rummaging through the stranded vehicle had been like trying to recover an ice cube from an oven, the chassis and frame searing him several times, upholstery close to molten. He’d managed to retrieve his pack and Alfred’s aluminum field case with documents and maps. The grilling sapping his strength, he’d collapsed under the acacia. Alfred had moved or rolled from where he’d left him, almost as if he was trying to crawl off, but not managing more than a body width. He’d looked up at Wayne through pained half closed eyes. “Save yourself,” he’d said. “I’ve been such a fool.”

Next Time: The Ordeal Continues

Dropping A Dime: What Is It About Poets and Pulps?

January 30, 2024Crime Fiction, Gothic, Pulp Fiction, Steampunk Fiction, Western Fictionbook-review, book-reviews, books, crime, Crime Fiction, Dropping A Dime, Poets & Pulps, Pulp FictionNuallain House, Publishers

What is it about poets and pulps? The easy answer is imagination and vernacular. One might throw in a dash of ubi sunt just because it is truly about nostalgia, a nostalgia for a certain kind of storytelling that dispenses with the metaphysical and is driven by narrative inspiration and colloquial dialogue. The storyteller was not always defined by paragraphs and pagination. And poets are the ur-storytellers, singing of valorous and miraculous interludes in the myths of yore—it’s something poets, even contemporary poets, feel at their roots. Of course a lot has changed since, as Aram Saroyan once remarked, campfires were the first TV. In the post industrial world, the wood pulp paper used in the publication of disposable literature from newspapers to magazines to novels for most of the 20^th century became the designation of a genre.

Pulp can also be an acronym for Popular Undervalued Literature Publications. There is something common, déclassé about pulps. That’s why that kind of reading is called “guilty pleasures.” All popular literature delights in the sordid and the vulgar in which the reader can catch a glimpse of themselves in de facto complicity.

Noir is often conflated with pulp, but there is a distinction. Penzler suggests that noir began with Hammett in the American canon. Police procedurals depict an unromanticized look at our venial selves, and thus the abysmal pessimism of “noir.” Noir can be characterized by irony and cynicism, the modern malaise.

Pulp writing, on the other hand, represents a certain naivety, a suspension of belief that speaks to a kind of anti-existentialism, an escape to the realm of fantasy and fanciful storytelling. With a few notable exceptions, the popular men’s magazines in the 1920s and 30s featuring lurid stories of crime, the unusual, and the future, “true” or otherwise, can be considered “pulp.”

Postwar, the pulp heroes and villains grew capes and fled to the comic books, leaving the field open to an angst driven sardonic despairing self-righteousness of the survivors of a world cataclysm, winners and losers, but mostly losers, now defined as noir.

It is not unusual to find poets engaged in writing or reading pulp or noir, or for a novelist to pen a collection of poems. As writers write, one or the other becomes their maître and is recognized as such. Almost a hundred years ago, the poet Kenneth Fearing published acclaimed crime fiction in the pulps. James Sallis, author of the Lew Griffin PI series, is an accomplished poet, yet it is for his skillful novellas that he is known. Jim Harrison, author of Legends Of The Fall and the Detective Sunderson novels, was also known for his poetry. Poet Alice Notley, an admitted fan of the genre, published an epic “noir” poem titled Negativity’s Kiss in France (where the word originated), managing to synthesize the bleakness of crime fiction with the abstraction of the avantgarde. Kerouac and Burroughs (Williams S.) wrote Hippos Were Boiled In Their Tanks, as a paean to the hardboiled pulps. Roberto Bolaño, a poet whose novels are more well known than his poetry, cashes in on the cachet of pulp and noir with the title of his remarkably dark narrative, The Savage Detectives. James Ellroy might fancy himself a poet, pushing the stylistic envelope as poets do. And for countless other writers, known and unknown, poets or novelists, the genre of imagination and vernacular holds a peculiar fascination. It is, in a sense, a return to the source. Just sayin’: scratch a poet and find a storyteller, and vice versa.

Two recent books, Woody Haut’s On Dangerous Ground and Jim Nisbet’s Pandemic Ditties, offer a case in point.

Woody Haut’s On Dangerous Ground, Film Noir Poems takes its title from the Nicholas Ray movie of the same name. As the 50 “film noir poems” illustrate, the poet is well informed in the both genres. The author of numerous critical studies of the noir genre including Pulp Culture: Hard Boiled Fiction and The Cold War and Neon Noir: Contemporary American Crime Fiction as well as a couple of noir pot boilers, Cry For a Nickel, Die For a Dime and Days of Smoke, Haut’s poems take their titles from such classics as The Big Sleep, Nightmare Alley, and Touch Of Evil as well as the lesser known films like Where The Sidewalk Ends and I Wake Up Screaming. The poems themselves are prompted by dialogue, interesting camera work, the plot, a particular scene, the acting by the actor/actress, or their depiction of a time, place and social relevance which reveals the author’s knowledgeable immersion in a distinct American genre with a French name.

Woody Haut started out on poetry but soon hit the hardboiled stuff. And he even admits it! “Poetry had been my first port of call, though over the years my relationship had succumbed to disgruntlements and separations.” And yes, the poetry world is not an easy safe to crack, and even if you do, sometimes, although the safe may seem full, the rewards can be empty. Still carrying some of the baggage from that time, he confesses, “stretching back to the mid-1960s, in Los Angeles, then San Francisco, with various publications and a range of mentors, from the academic — Henri Coulette, Philip Levine, Jack Gilbert — to the peripatetic—Michael McClure, Charles Olson, Amiri Baraka and Ed Dorn. More recently, my interest veered towards the more linguistically-oriented, such as Clark Coolidge, Michael Gizzi, and Tom Raworth, and political screeds by the likes of Sean Bonney and Keston Sutherland.” And he is not above spilling the beans and implicating other writers in this amour fou: “Alice Notley, Robert Polito, Geoffrey O’Brien, Nicholas Christopher, and earlier, Weldon Keyes and Kenneth Fearing. Even Raymond Chandler began his writing career composing doggerel for the Westminster Gazette, while the great Dorothy B. Hughes garnered the Yale Younger Poets Prize long before she wrote such classics as In a Lonely Place or Ride the Pink Horse.” And of course the most damning testimony, besides his own words, are the poems themselves.

On Dangerous Ground
(Nicholas Ray, 1952)
Why do you punks make me do it?
growls the cop as he beats the shit
out of a pathetic street hood. As if
the same old same old, aggressor
blaming victim, perking watch and
wonder. Law and order cracking as
inevitable as the saturated light, an
apartment filled with testosteronised
artifacts: what once was, will never
be. Violence, as always, feeding the
conundrum. If only it wasn’t so addictive,
or family of last resort. A jones exiling
him to a sparsely populated snow-
ridden town, viewed-a movie within
a movie-through a windscreen, the
schtumed backseat viewer cachéd
in their own private critique, bleached
out by the death of a young girl at the
hands of a teenager barely knowing
better. With darkness bleeding into
domesticity, a match is lit for unblinking
eyes, and a wounded plea to locate her
brother before revenge can freeze his
tracks. Frightened, the kid invariably
slips from higher ground, recycling a
geology of clichés, footnotes in an
expurgated history of crime and
punishment. Fifty years on, the screen-
writer, blagging in his local coffee shop,
tells a redacted story: how he’d simply
wanted the cop to return to the city a
different person. But the studio’s arc was
non-negotiable. After all, the politics of
money dictates that only a miracle can
suffice. A capitulation, however generous,
not quite more than barely nothing at all

As Haut explains, “the poems in On Dangerous Ground could be thought as distortions, often humorous, of the films under consideration, like scrambled film reviews that exist at a particular moment, distilled through time, whose shelf life will last until the next viewing, by which time another set of linguistic prompts or images might attract my attention.”

Woody Haut’s On Dangerous Ground is available from Close To The Bone Publishing

A longtime member of the Bay Area lit scene who passed away in 2022, Jim Nisbet was an internationally recognized novelist and poet, and a seminal figure in the West Coast Noir Renaissance. His many novels which include Lethal Injection, Windward Passage, Snitch World, and The Syracuse Codex (to name only a few) have been described as “Jack Kerouac meets Tarantino meets David Forster Wallace” which is some kind of hyperbole but fitting of the genre and the author.

Nisbet returned to his poetry roots (not that he was ever very far from them) to put the pandemic in pentameters in a selections of poems titled Pandemic Ditties. Jim, in the late 70s was a young poet in San Francisco who wrote and declaimed his poetry in coffee houses and bookstores. He even read at the historic San Francisco Punk Poetry Festival at Terminal Concepts Gallery with such luminaries as Andrei Codrescu, Gloria Frym, Darrell Gray, and the ravishing redhead femme fatale, Victoria Rathbun, straight out of a noir drama. Obviously, as it turns out, poetry wasn’t the only thing he was writing.

The poems, fifty five in all, collected in this slim volume from Molotov Editions, were written over a two year period (March 2020 through June of ’22) and distributed to his email contacts. Informed both by classical tradition and the immediate circumstances of the pandemic, these poems deal in matters political, spiritual, and cultural — but ultimately take the shape of an increasingly personal encounter with the phantasms of the pandemic.
Nisbet has a fine discerning ear and the Oxfordian vocabulary to go with it. The raucous ditties romp and roam, the pace hyperactive, reminiscent of the high wire antics of Nisbet’s prose, walking the line between doggerel and limerick, all the while juggling a ham on wry sense of humor. And like those internationally acclaimed novels, the poems are nothing but lively and thought provoking. An excerpt from “No. 19” written in July of 2020 gives an idea of the gyroscopic wit of the novelist as poet

Safe at home in 1958
We had Doctor Zorba
Who, his eyes turned away at last
From the jitterbugging babe

In The Asphalt Jungle, weekly chalked
On a dusty slate
“Man. Woman. Birth.
Death. Infinity.”

Today, not safe anywhere,
We have Subdoctor Schnorba
Sketching in thin air
“Person. Woman. Man.

Camera. TV.” Repeat ad
nauseum. Never mind
The incredulity. Expect
Rezids, directly deposited.

The poems in Pandemic Ditties (pace Defoe) demonstrate Nisbet’s great range, from highbrow to lowbrow at the flick of the tongue, resulting in fascinating frenetic high octane linguistic kaleidoscopic versifying. A seat belt, nay, a harness is recommended if you’re going along for the ride: whiplash may occur as the result of sudden sharp turns, changes in direction and orientation, and abrupt stops, all of it like an amusement park ride, entertaining as well as exhilarating. Anyone who has enjoyed Nisbet’s novels will appreciate this selection.

Jim’s Pandemic Ditties is available from Molotov Editions

There is no doubt, as it is quite obvious to the most casual of observers, the genre is infested with poets. Should the reader of pulp be concerned, put in a call to the exterminators? Probably not. Poets and pulps are in a symbiotic relationship, like Louis and Rick in Casablanca, it is a “beautiful friendship.”

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it,
Perry O’Dickle
for Dime Pulp,

Carriers VIII-IX

January 30, 2024Crime Fiction, Gothic, Pulp Fiction, Steampunk Fiction, Western FictionCarriers, Crime Fiction, fiction, Gothic, Mark DuCharme, Plague, Pulp Fiction, thriller, Vampires, writingNuallain House, Publishers

by Mark DuCharme

-VIII-

“You’re late,” Waycross blurted, testily. He was the Interim Assistant Deputy Director of Transportation— that is, of transporters like me. I never met anyone higher up than Waycross. He felt it, too. He was like a petulant king.

I looked at my watch. I was about a quarter-hour late or so, I was surprised to learn.

“I’m sorry, sir, but I had a carrier incident while off-duty in the middle of the night, and I thought I should try to get the cargo to the facility directly, and thought I could do that and still make it back here on time, but I misjudged the time terribly. I’m so horribly sorry, sir.”

“Well,” he paused, “don’t let it happen again.” Then he huffed away, just as testily as before, but perhaps a bit incensed at his own uncharacteristic show of relative mercy.

I noticed the New Man several feet away, looking stealthily toward me and observing— observing the whole time, with a most curious and furtive glee.

The New Man was sinister. I felt uneasy in his presence, and so tried to avoid him. There was something odd about him, the way he’d so suddenly replaced Hank, and the silence about it, the whispers, as if nothing had happened at all, as if Hank had never been. And the New Man always seemed to be turning up suddenly at the wrong time, looking about stealthily, behind one’s back, over one’s shoulder, as if he were studying you, as if he wanted to learn your private business, as if he wanted to learn to be you. I half suspected him of being a spy for management. Maybe, it now occurred to me, he was a spy for this Thorne.

I didn’t intend to let myself be late again, but neither could I make much sense of all that had recently occurred. Then I remembered the packet Gruber had left me. I reached into my coat and felt that it was still in my breast pocket. I suddenly became more curious about it. I mean, here was I, who had been fearing that old man— or rather, his remains— and I’d been carrying his final testament, of sorts, the whole time. And why me? I was just a neighbor. Sure, I’d drunk his brandy and listened to his ravings on occasion, but we weren’t close, or so I judged. Why would he have made a point of leaving this for my eyes alone? Why would he have told Ana about it, and why did she feel it was important (if she felt anything at all) that I should get it— especially in that very strange moment when we’d just burst in upon her old daddy’s death scene? What strange jumble of thoughts rambled through her mind at that time, out of which she determined that this was the one thing she wanted to be sure not to forget? It’s not like she remembered it a week later and slipped it under my apartment door; no, she made a point of giving it to me then. Something was mysterious about it, alright. Yet I had no time to look into it now; a full day’s work lay ahead of me.

Must I confess how my curiosity began to grow and fester over the course of that day’s labors, and how my lack of a full night’s sleep only seemed to compound my general state of confusion?

Finally, after endless hours, the sun began its slow descent, and I, after having deposited my cargo, began to make my way home also. I knew as soon as I got there that I would want to read Gruber’s packet. And so I hurried.

When I finally entered my apartment, the night now having fully descended upon the city, I tossed Gruber’s envelope upon the table and removed my coat. I was hungry, but even more so was I curious, so I grabbed a beer out of the refrigerator, stuck a frozen dinner in the microwave, and sat down with the packet that had captivated my thoughts for the better part of that strange day.

I ripped open the yellowed envelope and removed the sheets of folded paper and another sealed packet that had been inside the first. When I read the contents, it became clear to me that Gruber had thought more highly of our “friendship” than I myself.

Dear Johnny,
By the time you read this, I may be dead. That’s how things go in times like these. I’ll try to explain more about that later. Forgive me if I can’t explain it all. There are some things I am about to tell you that defy reason or virtue.
On the last night you came to visit, Johnny, I could sense your skepticism, so I didn’t want to go on about all this. But nevertheless, I feel it’s important to tell you, because if I’m right, my life is in real danger, and yours is too.
I mentioned one Artemas Thorne that night. It didn’t seem like you’d heard of him. Nevertheless, he’s a very important man in this town. Some say, the most important. But I told you, or I tried to tell, that he is very, very dangerous. You must be on your guard!
Why he’s so dangerous will take some explaining. You probably already think me a little crazy, Johnny, but if you don’t, you surely will after you have finished reading what follows. I can assure you, though, that I am in full possession of my mental faculties, despite my age, even as I imagine that my assurance will not matter much to you, my dear friend. Nevertheless, because your own soul is at stake, as well as mine, I must try at least to convince you, however quixotic that labor may prove.
Johnny, strange things are going on in this city— strange and wicked things. Why do you think that all those bodies have to be brought to the abandoned warehouse before dusk? What is it your employers are afraid of? Have you ever thought about that?
Johnny— you’re smarter than you pretend to be, but if I can speak frankly, my friend, your problem is that you’re incurious.
Johnny, have you ever heard about the dead returning to life? I don’t mean to life exactly, but to some pale semblance of it. When this happens, some call those returned— those whom I believe you call “carriers”— the undead.
Johnny, please bear with me. I am not as feeble-minded as I think you think I am. I am not feeble-minded at all, in fact. But when I say this, I know you will not believe me.
Nevertheless, I persist, because you are my last hope. My daughter is lost to me. I know few people young enough, strong enough, to carry on this fight. You are both young and strong, Johnny, and if you will but believe, I know that you can see this through— and do what must be done.
You have received the calling card, by now, of Artemas Thorne, I trust. No, it’s not I who put it there! I understand your skeptical nature, Johnny— in many ways, I am a skeptic myself, as I’ve tried to stress to you, though it seems to have fallen on deaf ears. In any case, perhaps by the time you read this, you might be a bit more curious about him than when we last spoke.
I am a historian by training, if not by profession, as you well know. I have done a fair amount of historical research in my time. I have looked into this Artemas Thorne— for reasons that may become clear to you, but which for now it is difficult to fully explain. In any event, there is no record of a person of that name, man or woman (for in fact, it could be either) ever being born on this continent. And I’ve scoured all the data. I find that rather curious.
The other curious thing is that the only record— again, on this continent— of a person by that name, in any variant spelling, is of a colonist who arrived here on one of the early ships. A birth record has been found for that Artemas Thorne near London, but no death record for that person, born in 1596, has been located. Very strange.
Johnny, I am convinced that the Artemas Thorne who lives here and now and the Artemas Thorne born in 1596 are one and the same! He is one of the undead, Johnny— in fact, he is their leader, of sorts. If I am right about this— and I am almost certain that I am— then it is he who brought this plague upon our city. He is a very wicked man— or should I say, creature?
You’ll want proof. I can offer none, at least until catastrophe strikes. But if you ever wake up in the middle of the night, full of restless dreams, do not look out your south-facing window if you lack courage.
My hope and purpose in writing posthumously (should my guess prove correct, and my daughter, in that event, keep her word) is that you be awakened to this danger and act swiftly, as one should.

Most sincerely,
Augustus Aloysius Gustave “Jim” Gruber

PS: I am enclosing a second sealed letter in this first. I ask that you not read it unless and until you become convinced that I am right. This second letter will instruct you on what to do to rid this city of its plague and of the demon who brought it upon us.
PPS: One more thing, Johnny. My daughter Analeise may call upon you some evening, if she already hasn’t. Don’t let her see this letter or the enclosed one! If I’m right about all of these things, Johnny, she is dangerous too.

I was most perplexed by this strange missive. On the one hand, Gruber here sounds madder than ever before; on the other, he makes a strange sort of sense.

I grew upset. The events of the last few days had cast an unmistakable pall over things. It seemed as if I’d been drawn into some chain of circumstance that led I knew not where, and over which I had no control. I didn’t know what to do or think. I began to wish that I’d told Ana to go the hell away and gone back to sleep. I began to wish that I hadn’t knocked on Gruber’s door that night. O, what to believe?

I finished my meal, then drank another beer, then another. I went to bed at the usual time, but slept fitfully. I would have gladly settled for troubled dreams.

-IV-

I couldn’t very easily get to sleep, and when I did it was only a feeble approximation of rejuvenating repose. I did wake fully, though, around midnight. Old Gruber’s letter had haunted me, chasing back innocence’s rest. But when I glanced up at the clock and saw that it was only 11:58 P.M., I felt despair. And then, those words of Gruber’s came back to me: if you ever wake up in the middle of the night, full of restless dreams, do not look out your south-facing window if you lack courage. Gruber had been crazy, but he could be right about some things. My apartment does have a south-facing window, for example. But what could I see from there, and why would it require courage? The main thing visible from there is that old tower.

I have remarked earlier in my tale upon the unusual construction of the building in which my quarters are located— how the edifice is essentially an old Victorian house that has been added on to over the many decades hence. This is so, and the newer appendages are sometimes odd and ill-suited to the original components of the structure.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the tower. It is probably at least five or six stories in height— easily the tallest edifice for blocks around. It is constructed of mortared stones. It looks rather more like a European structure than one erected on this continent. In truth, it resembles a medieval tower more than anything post-Victorian, and so it fits right in with the odd hodgepodge of architectural styles that is the hallmark of the assemblage I call home. There are windows in that tower (fairly narrow), but there is no door at all outside its circular structure. It is said that an old door that no one ever uses— one that, coincidentally, is to be found just to the left as I exit my quarters and approach the main stairwell— actually leads to a hallway which, in turn, leads into that tower. But as I’ve said, that doorway is never used. It doesn’t seem that anyone has the key. And I have never seen lights in the tower’s somewhat narrow rectangular windows. In truth, I think that no one lives there, nor has anyone for at least as long as I have occupied my quarters.

The more I thought about it, the less sense Gruber’s statement made. You see, if I look out that window at night— or in day, for that matter— just about the only thing I can see is that tower. Now why should that be so frightening?

Here, I suddenly thought to myself, here was a chance to prove Old Gruber the benign lunatic I always took him to be. I got out of bed at once and went to that window. Surely, I would need no courage, because surely all that would be visible would be that old, abandoned tower, the darkness that engulfed it, and perhaps some faint lights down the street. This was brilliant, I thought. Surely all this vague, uneasy feeling would be resolved at once, and I would turn and go right back to bed, and sleep there like a babe in comfort.

I should not need to tell you with what chagrin I had to admit to myself that Old Gruber knew exactly what he had been talking about. For there it was, out my window facing south, that stone phallic structure. And out of one of its narrow, rectangular windows, I saw emerge to my growing horror the figure of a man. Yes, it was unmistakable. But this man did not leap to his doom, nor make some plea to the unheeding night; no. This man, instead, emerged from that window and crawled— yes, that is the right word— he crawled down the side of that building, quite like a spider. He had dark hair and was slender, but not slight, of build. He was clad all in black or dark gray— I could not tell the difference by cloudy moonlight— and his long overcoat paid no more respect to the law of gravity than his body did. When this downward-crawling human arachnid arrived at the narrow window directly below the one he had emerged from, he entered abruptly, and with an insect-like and most inhuman agility. Then— and this is the strangest part— I could see him stand up in the lower chamber he had so unnaturally entered, and turn and face me suddenly— yes, me! He was clearly aware that I had been watching him, and even in the dim moonlight, I could yet detect a malevolent smile curl his lips.

I rushed from my window in horror. Had this all been a dream? No, it couldn’t have been! I was nowhere near a state of sleep conducive to dreams, much less any state of sleep. I was wide awake, yet what I saw struck mortal terror in me in a way no nightmare ever had, even as a little boy. No, this was all too real! And this thing— this spider-creature— was now aware of me, if he hadn’t been before. My blood chilled as I reflected on this new and dreadful development.

Next Time: The Letter Inside The Letter

Cheése Stands Alone XII

January 30, 2024Crime Fiction, Gothic, Pulp Fiction, Steampunk Fiction, Western FictionAirship Commander, Cheese Stands Alone, Dirigibles, Frida the Fearless, Lydia Cheése, Pax Victoriana, Phyllis Huldarsdottir, Pulp Fiction, SteampunkNuallain House, Publishers

by Phylis Huldarsdottir

Cast of Characters (Partial):

Serpina, a young girl who serves as Serre-Pain’s assistant and snake handler and who is also a psychic Vessel.

Vlady, an older bearlike man also in the employ of Madame Ophelia’s Ophidiarium and a traveling circus strongman Lydia recognizes from her past.

Chief Inspector Karla Kola, head of the IOTA squad charged with capturing Commodore Jack Cheése and Lydia’s nemesis and pursuer.

Chapter XVII

The stone threshold led to the open door and the darkened interior of the public house. The air was close and smoky as Lydia Cheése stepped onto the roughhewn floor. The amber glow of lights, plasma based or bacterry powered, even some organic bougies illuminated wide tables and the chatter of voices of those around them. Delectable odors made her mouth water.

A large broad shouldered woman, fists to hips, blocked any further progress. Pyare spoke to her a few words in a local dialect. The woman’s eyes narrowed and reconsidered what Pyare had told her and what she was seeing, Lydia and Serpina looking very rough. She inclined her head in the direction of the kitchen and had them follow to an alcove nearby. There was a bench and a stool. From a doorway opposite, the large kitchen fireplace exuded heat. She addressed Pyare with a hand held out.

Pyare turned to Lydia, the hood of her burnoose still drawn close around her face, “She will feed us but we must pay. You have Victorines. Or better, the local currency. They are very suspicious of Victorians.”

Serpina stepped forward. “I have a few old francs.” She retrieved the bills from her wallet, handing them to the woman, and smiled. The woman’s severe demeanor softened and she smiled back as if entranced. She was older, with a pushed in face and large eyes, greying dark hair pulled together under a scarf. “Yes, I speak standard little. I was maid many years in Nouveau Old Orleans. I am Mira. Please sit. I will be back.”

Lydia’s eyes questioned Pyare. He seemed nervous. The murmur of voices from the main room of the Bear & Lion had quieted as the newcomers were silently scrutinized. Serpina sensed Pyare’s anxiety and stood close to him, in his shadow.

“Do you trust her?” Lydia had quickly scanned their environment. A large room occupied by a dozen or more people, eating, drinking, talking. It all seemed very congenial. Until they arrived. A few, men, were on their feet and moving around, some to an adjacent room that also appeared to be occupied.

“Of course. Once we crossed the threshold, the rules of the clan do not allow any harm to come to us. The food will be simple but good. It is once we leave here that I’m worried about. I see some very unfriendly faces at those tables.”

“I’d rather not worry about that on an empty stomach. They can’t all be hostile to us, can they?”

“They will be if they think we are police spies. Or worse, refugees.”

The woman named Mira returned with a large pot and three bowls which she set on a barrelhead nearby. Ladling out portions of murky stew she passed the bowls around. Lydia looked at the congealed brown and orange mass with certain revulsion. She was hungry, the smell was savory but unfamiliar. The thought of it passing through her mouth made her gag involuntarily. Pyare looked at her in surprise as both he and Serpina were already swallowing their first bites. Mira looked at her askance as if it were a comment on the dish.

Pyare nodded vigorously and pointed at the bowl so that the woman would understand that he thought it delectable. Serpina, as well, nodded her appreciations. “Mushrooms,” she said, her eyes widening. “Sausage!” Pyare chimed in.

Each word was like a stab in the gut, but after such reviews, how could she refuse, especially under the returned suspicious gaze of their hostess. She nudged a small portion from the bowl to her lips and past her teeth. A warm sensation flooded her mouth from the surprisingly rich texture of the morsel. It did not taste as unpleasant as it looked. There was a complexity to the flavors that she had sampled only in the most expensive restaurants in Rio Rio. This was not the same old remolded morselized biotein fare that was common throughout the Commonwealth, fauxfillets of fizsh and strings of rehydrated chibz, or ubiquitous biotein patty pazetree puffs sold in take outlets and automats everywhere. Except in the Massif, apparently. The first bite was followed by a second bite although she was uncertain what to do with the first bit of sausage. She closed her eyes and swallowed so that she could tell herself she had done so without looking.

It wasn’t long before Lydia was running a finger along the insides of the bowl to get every bit of the stew and unhesitatingly accepted the large stein of fermented broth proffered by an approving Mira. Lydia felt full as she had never felt before. And drowsy. If it hadn’t been for the commotion in the main room of the house, she would have drifted off to catch up on much needed sleep.

A man in a tilted hat repeated what he had just proclaimed. “It smells like destruction, I tell you!” He was a round man, tall, with shockingly blazing eyes and a large unruly white moustache overhanging his mouth. Another man seated near him took offense. “No, friend, it smells like good food and warm bodies, especially those of women!” His assertion was met with a few guffaws and a comradely “Hear, hear.”

Lydia stepped between them. “Let me show you mine.” She proffered the identification card with one hand and with the other placed the twin tips of the viper blade under his chin.

“It smells like an evil wind that bodes no good!” the round man continued.

“Maybe it’s a broken wind,” someone else offered to a chorus of laughter.

“He should know” offered another, “He’s a bag of wind. Blow back to your mountain hut, old man, and take your bitter nuts with you!”

“Yar, that he is! And always with the same complaint!” The tone was a little more aggressive. “You don’t belong here. Go back to your wallow!” The accusation had come from a man who had entered from the adjacent room. He was large with a shaggy head of mouse brown hair.

“Ruin! I can smell it in the air. The foul stench of annihilation!”

“Blame it on the wind. It’s blowing your stinking breath back in your face!” Another man in a great coat had stood up menacingly. “We don’t need your kind around here! You are stirring your disturbance in the wrong place!”

Lydia looked puzzled. She wasn’t certain what was happening. What had started as banter had turned abusive. She could tell by Pyare’s posture that he was on the brink of fight or flight. Only Serpina seemed unconcerned, a slight smile turning up the edges of her mouth.

“It is us, all of us, who bring this doom to ourselves. Not the Clockwork Commonwealth or its client states, or the sanctioned republics, but we, the humans who comprise these states of mind, the squirming grubs, the microbic slime of this planet. We are bent on destruction, on self-destruction!” The round man in the tilted hat held a finger up in testament. “And why? Because of time! We have too much of it. Like misers we want to acquire it all, all the time. And what do we do with all this time? We claim that it is necessary for our own self-improvement and satisfaction! Yet look at us, do we look satisfied? If this is improvement, it is only preparation for the grave! The entire mammal world, with one exception, has never once given time to consider how to improve themselves. What can we say about their lack of discontent?”

“Get out with you words,” another man spoke up, “they’re spoiling the taste of my food.”

A few of the men at another table pushed back their bench and stood. The mouse haired man advanced toward the tilted hat who stood defiant in his righteousness. “I’ll teach you to curdle the cream!” he said threateningly.

“Stop!” It was Serpina. She had stepped out of the shadows. She was still smiling, and the men were diverted. “This man has freedom to speak his discontent. It is the winter of his days, one that we will all face, yet you want to deny him this fundamental right to speak the fruits of his experience. Why reject what he is saying when you could engage and glean the substance of his meaning?”

Mira had come to stand by Serpina, Lydia and Pyare cautiously following. “Yes, leave the old man alone, he has a right to his demons.”

The tilted hat bowed to the hostess. “I am only old because I have run out of time, but in my heart burns the eternal flame of love.”

Mouse hair glared at them and then glanced at the standing men around him. “Who are these intruders? Spies, refugees? I’ll want to see you papers!”

“Conan, you haven’t the authority. These are guests under my roof.”

“We’ll see about that.” He approached Serpina, his hand out demanding. “Your papers.”

Lydia stepped between them. “Let me show you mine.” She proffered the identification card with one hand and with the other placed the twin tips of the viper blade under his chin.

“Odette Oday?” Conan gulped and swallowed his insistence. He blinked at the passport. “Third Class Worker?” Stepping back, he shook his head. “Maybe those two.” He pointed with his chin at Serpina and Pyare. “But you, you’re too shiny. Except for the mud on your face, you could be a Victorian, an IOTA spy, for all I know.”

Serpina laughed. “What could IOTA possibly want with a congregation of unwashed farmers and trappers smelling of the field and the wood? Are you plotting a revolution, listening to Commodore Jack and his ICER propaganda over unsanctioned broadcast frequencies on illegally modified boxes? Here in your sylvan redout, you are the powerless of the powerless. The only thing that protects you is your ignorance. Perhaps that is the stench of ruin to which this fellow is referring. Furthermore, we are travelers, not displaced persons. Our path was not chosen for us thus we must follow the one we can find. What is our goal I cannot say only that it is not found here.” With that she bowed to Mira and clasped the woman’s hands in hers. “Thank you for your hospitality, sister.”

Once outside, Lydia caught up with Serpina who seemed propelled by a determination to get away as quickly as possible. “What was all that in there?” What were you doing?”

Serpina shook her head. “Not now. We are still in danger. We have to get out of sight.”

A shout was raised from the house. Pyare on Lydia’s heels, they turned as one expecting the worst. It was the man in the tilted hat hurrying toward them.

Slightly out of breath, he wagged a finger at Serpina. “A foolish thing to do. Stir up a hornet’s nest. They are used to my disputations. They insult me and then forget that I am about. Or should I say they think they can forget what I’ve said, yet I’ve lodged a bug in their berets. Over time their objections are less vociferous although they enjoy the wit of their insults too much to ever stop.” He smiled under the wide brush of his moustache. “Thank you for coming to my defense.” His brow creased, “But your unfortunate disclosure of their anti-government activities has put you in grave danger.”

Pyare confronted the tilted hat. “Who are you?”

Bushy eyebrows raised in surprise, “Of course, how rude of me. Allow me to introduce myself,” hat doffed, “Abraham Etugouda, poet, world traveler, originally from Iberia, citizen in the Republic of Letters.”

Serpina spoke up. “Mr. Etugouda, perhaps you can help us. We are trying to reach. . . .”

“Wait,” Pyare stepped in, “How do we know we can trust him with where we’re going?”

Etugouda gave a body shaking laugh. “I’m an old man everyone thinks is crazy. And who would believe me? And why would I betray you? I’m a stranger here myself. Let me repay your kindness. Tell me your destination, perhaps I can offer some assistance.”

“Autre Lyons,” Lydia replied, “It is imperative that we reach it within the next twenty four hours. Unfortunately following the regular route through the Massif will not allow that.”

Tilted hat nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, yes, I think it can be done. But we must move quickly.” He herded them across the stone bridge and up the hillside to a copse of oaks. “The men at the Bear & Lion have a transmitter in the storeroom. They will have alerted the militia by now. The roads will be watched.”

“What can we do? If you know the path, tell us!” Lydia insisted.

“I will recite a poem.”

“How will a poem ever get us to Autre Lyons?”

“It is an epic poem of local provenance called La Reccourci. It tells the story of a brave young woman who follows an ancient hunter’s path over the Massif to the valley beyond in order to save her father’s life.”

“I don’t see how that is helpful? ”

“As I said, I am a world traveler and a poet. I travel the world collecting the epic poems of various regions, especially epics that describe the topography of the locale. This particular epic contains a map, you might say, landmarks, and directions. It is of the genre known as GPS, Grandes Poemes Secour.”

“Your reciting the poem will require you to accompany us,” Pyare stated suspiciously, “Don’t you have it written down?”

The poet’s moustache raised in a grin and he pointed above his ear. “It’s all up here! I’ve memorized hundreds of epics.” He gazed at their incredulous expressions. “Now if I can just remember how it begins.”

Welcome to Volume Four, Number Four of Dime Pulp,A Serial Pulp Fiction Magazine.

Welcome to Volume Four, Number Three of Dime Pulp,A Serial Pulp Fiction Magazine.

Cast of Characters (Partial):

Chapter XX

Chapter XXI

Next Time: Citily and the Republic of Corsardinia

Welcome to Volume Four, Number Two of Dime Pulp,A Serial Pulp Fiction Magazine.

Cast of Characters (Partial):

Chapter XVIII

Chapter XIX

Next Time: Flight Of The Long Bird

Welcome to Volume Four, Number One of Dime Pulp,A Serial Pulp Fiction Magazine.

Next Time: The Ordeal Continues

-VIII-

-IV-

Next Time: The Letter Inside The Letter

Chapter XVII

Next Time: The Tides Of History

Welcome to Volume Four, Number Four of Dime Pulp,
A Serial Pulp Fiction Magazine.

Welcome to Volume Four, Number Three of Dime Pulp,
A Serial Pulp Fiction Magazine.

Welcome to Volume Four, Number Two of Dime Pulp,
A Serial Pulp Fiction Magazine.

Welcome to Volume Four, Number One of Dime Pulp,
A Serial Pulp Fiction Magazine.