Letters From the Labyrinth 370

Dead Chick Planet

"I'm here about the dead chicks."

That was what the woman butting in front of me and another customer at the post office said. I turned, intrigued. She was short, thin, blonde hair fading with age to the color of straw. I placed her at older than me -- probably mid-sixties but then I remembered the day before when my postal carrier, whom I'd thought was in her seventies, told me she was the same age as me -- 56. I can't gauge age anymore. When I look in the mirror, I don't see 56. But I'm also smart enough to know that how I see myself isn't necessarily how others see me. In my mind, I'm still as suave and charming as Diamond David Lee Roth, but I suspect others look at me and think "Look at that silly old man. How sweet."

But I digress.

"Oh," said the postal worker at the counter. "The dead chicks!"

He said it with the same exuberant tone he uses for everything. This is a new post office for me. The post office in my hometown is like another office away from my office for me. I know everyone there. i know their spouses and kid's names. I know their hobbies and passions and political leanings. And they know me well enough to know that sometimes weird people send me weird things, so they watch my back. But now I use the post office in the town where Vortex Books & Comics is located, because every morning before I open the store, I ship the previous day's mail orders.

There are two guys who work the window. I don't know either of their names yet. One is a friendly and gregarious dude who gets me taken care of and then lets me get about my day. The other one, the one who was currently commenting exuberantly on the dead chicks, I'll call Beardy McBeardson for the sake of this piece. 

The blonde lady turned to me and the other customer -- a tall woman who might have been forty or fifty or twelve-thousand and two. I just can't tell anymore.

"I'm sorry," said the blonde. "I don't mean to cut in line, but I'm in a hurry. I might be able to save some of them."

"I don't think so," Beardy replied. "They're frozen. They got left out overnight."

Now, I am no stranger to mail order livestock. My father and I used to get honeybee queens through the mail. But still, many questions ran through my mind. Among them:

1. Why the hell was this woman ordering baby chicks through the mail when we live in rural Pennsylvania. There are a thousand and one livestock auctions and farmer's markets around here. Throw a stone and you'll hit one. Indeed, there's an Amish guy less than two miles away who'll sell anyone chickens, sheep, ducks, or even a goat, should you need one.

2. Why the hell was this woman ordering baby chicks during what is still winter?

3 (and most pressing). What did she mean by "I might be able to save some of them"?

Beardy handed her a box and she opened it right there at the counter, and sure enough, there were a dozen frozen baby chicks inside. 

Last night, on my way home, I saw some roadkill that I thought might have been Bocephus (because I still look for her, in the hopes that she just moved on down the river in order to teach me a lesson about trying to trap and save her). Turned out the roadkill was just a beaver, and it, too, was frozen solid, so I've become an expert in identifying frozen animals.

These chicks were popsicles.

"How," Beardy asked, with wide-eyed earnestness, "will you save them?"

"There's a guy on YouTube. It can be done. I've watched him do it."

And then she turned and rushed out, without so much as a thank you.

It was the tall lady's turn, and then mine. I had one package to mail for a Vortex customer. I've dealt with Beardy enough to know that could be a twenty minute task, because he loves to talk. Last time I was in, it was all about Central PA disc jockeys of old, and how my voice sounded familiar.

He noticed my They Live t-shirt, and said that he was a fan of the film.

"Me, too," I said, trying to keep my tone disinterested and noncommittal.

"It's really a documentary," Beardy said, leaning forward on the counter with both elbows, my package now forgotten.

Beardy spent the next ten minutes telling me about how John Carpenter really knows what's really going on in the real world which is apparently different than the world we think of as real. According to a YouTube video Beardy watched, John is secretly leading a Q-group against the Globalists. I thought about telling Beardy that actually, John is probably playing Fallout 76 right now. I thought about telling him that John had signed some graphic novels for the store. But both of these would have required further engagement.

Now, Beardy was telling me about another YouTube video about FEMA camps and drones, and about how he has recurring dreams where he is trapped in a drone-guarded FEMA camp. I considered asking him if that's because he falls asleep watching these YouTube videos but decided against it.   

The tall lady had returned, and was standing behind me. Apparently, she'd forgotten to mail a letter. I used her as an excuse to move out of the way, but Beardy ignored her, now telling me about a YouTuber that I should watch, who explains what is really happening in China, and how they and Russia are trying to save us all.

I managed to extricate myself with a promise that I'd watch it, and then rushed out of the post office. The tall lady came out behind me. She smiled at me, so i returned the gesture.

"Jeez," I said with a commiserating laugh, "I just wanted to mail my package. Not get indoctrinated into YouTube conspiracy theories."

Her smile vanished. "That's the only place where they tell the truth. You can't trust anything else."

Then she hurried away from me like I was the crazy person. I watched her climb into a pick-up truck with a bunch of obscene bumper stickers involving various political and social opinions.

Somewhere, right now in this town, there is a woman playing Herbert West, trying her best to reanimate dead baby chickens by following along with a YouTube tutorial. 

And I'm just out here trying to sell some books and have something to hold on to in my old age and pass down after I'm gone, but meanwhile, the world is falling apart around me, and I'm slowly becoming convinced that most people I meet might, in fact, be nuts. And I don't need special sunglasses to see it. It's happening all around us, every day.

The center cannot hold in a dead chick nation... and I am living on a planet full of dead chicks.

Good morning. I’m Brian Keene and this is Letters From the Labyrinth, a weekly newsletter for fans, friends, and family.

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So, this got announced last Friday.

For those who have difficulty with images, it’s a Publishers Marketplace news item announcing THE RISING: MORE SELECTED SCENES FROM THE END OF THE WORLD by myself, illustrated by Anthrax’s Charlie Benante, and coming later this year. These are all new stories set in the franchise. Some take place during the first and second books. Others take place during the third book.

One more book in the franchise will follow — a novel called THE FALL. The beginning of that one takes place at the end of CITY OF THE DEAD. The first half then takes place concurrently with THE RISING: SELECTED SCENES FROM THE END OF THE WORLD and THE RISING: MORE SELECTED SCENES FROM THE END OF THE WORLD, and then the main bulk of the novel deals with the second and third waves, after the Siqqusim have departed.

I was telling a reader about that at House of Last Resort weekend and he nearly choked on his beer and then asked, all wild-eyed: “How can there be anything worse than the fucking Siqqusim?!”

Oh, there’s plenty worse. And since THE RISING broke all kind of rules for horror fiction and pushed the envelope, I intend to break them all over again and then push the envelope over a cliff.

THE FALL is a very long book, by design. We’re talking the length of The Stand or Swan Song or Drood. I’m roughly 50,000 words into it and haven’t even gotten the main characters together yet. Needless to say, it will be a while yet.

THE RISING: MORE SELECTED SCENES FROM THE END OF THE WORLD is a much slimmer book — about the size of THE RISING: DELIVERANCE. It will be out near the end of this year.

If you’re young or new and have never read The Rising series, here’s the order:

The Rising
City of the Dead
The Rising: Selected Scenes From the End of the World
The Rising: Deliverance
The Rising: More Selected Scenes From the End of the World
The Fall

* * *

The signed, limited edition hardcovers of SPLINTERED: THE LABYRINTH, Book 3 began shipping this past week from Thunderstorm Books. As always, they look gorgeous. If you missed your chance to get one, I have three copies available here. First come, first serve.

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The signed, limited edition hardcovers of THE DRIVE-IN: MULTIPLEX should ship imminently. I believe I mentioned that there was a post-production snafu. We were pretty frantic, thinking we might have to pulp the run and redo it, but luckily, it didn’t come to that. The books look beautiful, and are signed by all contributors. As I said, they’ll ship very soon, so thanks for your patience.

* * *

And speaking of shipping, the next batch of Lifetime Subscriber packages will begin going out this coming week. Included in this shipment are:

AN OCCURRENCE IN CRAZY BEAR VALLEY
THE LAST ZOMBIE OMNIBUS
ALONE
SUNDANCING
SPLINTERED: THE LABYRINTH, Book 3
LEADER OF THE BANNED: THE BEST OF HAIL SATEN, Vol. 4
THE DRIVE-IN: MULTIPLEX
and a special Top Secret chapbook.

Also, if one of you Lifetimers could comment below, y’all received THINGS LEFT BEHIND in your last shipment, correct?

* * *

Still trying to readjust and find the balance between writing and running the store, but definitely did better this past week than the week before. Worked on the first draft of FALLING ANGELS: THE LABYRINTH, Book 4 and first drafts of several commissioned LOST LEVEL stories. Finished and turned in a short story called “Head” for a Bizarro anthology. Finished final copyedits on both ISLAND OF THE DEAD and LOVE AND HATE IN THE TIME OF COVID. And worked on the Scares That Care Authorcon III Programming Schedule, as well as some behind-the-scenes HWA business.

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Currently Watching: Curb Your Enthusiasm (Max), Survivor season 46 (Paramount+)

Currently Reading: Heaven, Hell, Or Houston by Thomas Erb and Dirty Bombs by Dacia Arnold

Currently Listening: Brian Keene Radio

Last week’s episode of Curb (in which Richard Lewis and Larry argue about Richard’s estate planning) hit extra hard upon Richard Lewis’s passing this past week.

This season of Survivor is notable in that there’s zero player diversity when it comes to age. I don’t think there’s a single player on the island over the age of 40. And I know it’s early days, but I suspect that may be why it fell flat with me. Hard to be engaged with the contest when you sit there wanting to smack all the contestants upside the head with a coconut.

* * *

A reminder that I don’t do social media much anymore (other than for promotion). This newsletter and my Patreon my primary outlets for any real communication of substance. I Blog each morning on Patreon — just a few brief paragraphs that serve as a mini-version of this newsletter. You don’t need to be a paid Patreon subscriber to read them. They are accessible to everyone who subscribes to my Patreon, paid or not.

And that does it for this week. Thanks, as always, for reading. I’ll see you every morning this week on Patreon, and see you back here again next Sunday.

— Brian Keene