It Could Happen Here - CZM Book Club: The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion: Part Three

Episode Date: October 22, 2023

In this episode of the Cool Zone Media Book Club, Margaret Killjoy continues reading the next two chapters of her folk horror novella the Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion to Robert.  https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-lamb-will-slaughter-the-lion-margaret-killjoy/7104105See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadowbride. Join me, Danny Trejo, and step into the flames of fright. An anthology podcast of modern-day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturnal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into tech's elite and how they've turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech

brought to you by an industry veteran with nothing to lose. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts from. On Thanksgiving Day 1999, five-year-old Cuban boy Elian Gonzalez was found off the coast of Florida. And the question was, should the boy go back to his father in Cuba? Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or stay with his relatives in Miami? Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Call Zone Media.

Welcome to It Could Happen Here, Book Club. I'm Robert Evans. This is a podcast about things falling apart, and this is our special weekend edition of It Could Happen Here, where Margaret Kiljoy and myself sit down and read a story. Well, Margaret reads the story. At this point, I am listening to it. Presumably, the format'll switch up at some point

uh but but right now margaret how are we i'm excited for part three of of the first daniel kane book are are you excited to give it to me i i am excited to give it to you robert and you know when we switch up the format you'll just make up a story as we go well like at the stop in the middle of the chapter and then you just make up what happens yeah we go well like at the stop in the middle of the chapter and then you just make up what happens yeah i guess that's just called dungeons and dragons actually oh i i yeah i was we could call it dungeons and dragons i was just gonna read from one of my thomas pension books because no one else is act no one's no one has actually ever finished one so it'll it'll be as if i'm uh i'm just making up a story i I admit I've never finished a Thomas Pynchon book.

No, no, no, of course not. There's things to do in the world, Margaret. You don't gotta finish a Thomas Pynchon book. As I get older, I have more interest in like, finally sitting down and reading War and Peace and all that shit. But I just keep looking at my copy of Alan Moore's Jerusalem and going, one day, one day. Exactly.

That'll be like when we're finally, and we'll do the book club version. We'll be like, book club presents war and peace, followed by Jerusalem, followed by Infinite Jest. Yeah, yeah, finally. We'll get Jamie Loftus on for that one. She loves reading Infinite Jest.

Or we'll read novellas by i once ran my i won't tell people i once ran one of my books through what grade level is this adult book that i wrote and i was very proud to say that one of my books was written at a fifth or sixth grade reading level that's all you need baby i did all of my real important reading by the time i was six great i've actually been i'm friends with this baby now so i've been reading some uh uh dr seuss with her and man those are good books yeah yeah yeah yeah there's a lot of the human uh human condition contained within hop on pop i hadn't realized once you move up to shell silverstein oh yeah directly from there to daniel cain that's right the shell silverstein of vaguely lovecraftian horror yeah action punk i'd say shell silverstein wrote something like that scooby-doo i don't know

i i gave up on asterisk punk yeah i uh that's that's the next ai generated thing i would like to see shelf silverstein scooby-doo so where we last left our heroes we're starting with chapter five everyone else will have just heard presumably like, like a week ago, chapter four. But we haven't heard it in a moment because there was a break between recordings. And so Daniel Cain showed up to a town. There's a three antler deer that's goring people. And some people in the town love it. And some people in the town hate it.

And the town is gearing up for some conflict chapter five my second night in freedom began more somberly than my first it was well after dark by the time vulture showed up with potatoes and onions and spring greens to be cooked before heading back to the lookout rock. The days in Bryn were in the living room working through plans, which left me alone to cook. I was happy to spend some time in the kitchen. It had been a long time since I'd been surrounded by people living the way I wanted to live, and I was almost able to convince myself that things were going to be fine. I've got a long history of scraping together little moments of peace in the midst of hardship, and cooking is a great way to do that. I cubed the potatoes and, alongside lots of garlic and oil, set them in a pan in the oven. I went through their spice rack and realized half of what they had had been grown, dried, and

chopped here in town. I let myself get lost in the smell of fresh and dried herbs. The brussel sprouts were from the food bank, But were going to taste amazing regardless I cut them up, drizzled them with oil and salt, put them in the second tray I've made fancier meals in my life, but it still felt good I set the old-fashioned kitchen timer and went to join everyone else You can't figure it out? Brynn asked She was pacing She didn't strike me as the type who worried much, but she was worried

Even Doomsday looked paler than usual She was pacing. She didn't strike me as the type who worried much, but she was worried. Even Doomsday looked paler than usual. She leaned back in her easy chair, feigning nonchalance, but her teacup trembled in her hand. I didn't lead the ritual. I was blindfolded. I've spent all day poring over my books, and there's nothing there. Nothing. Nothing about dismissing a spirit, Brynn asked, or nothing about Ulyixie? Nothing. Thursday was standing, statuesque at his partner's side. There was certainly more to their relationship than him trying his hardest to guard her, I was sure. But times call for us to fulfill certain roles.

Will Rebecca know how, Brynn asked? I don't think so, Doomsday said. Vulture went to warn her last night. And how did he put it? She's gone paranoid. Jet fuel can't melt steel beams level paranoid. Made him show her his ribs. Vulture said, and I agree,

that you only get that kind of paranoid when you've just got no agency at all. When you wish you had control over your life, but you just don't. She and Clay planned the ritual together. I don't know that either of them would have known how to do it alone. What are our options? Brynn asked. If we leave town, take Rebecca with us. Will it come after us? Thursday asked. It probably can't, Doomsday said,

but it's a moot point. I won't leave without cleaning up my own mess. Rebecca's place is warded too, Thursday asked. You Lixie can't get her? If you and Rebecca stay inside, what's it going to do? Nothing? Attack the people close to you? I have no idea, Doomsday said. She set down her tea, untouched,

then pulled her feet up onto the chair and hugged her knees. Where are Clay's notebooks, I asked. People turned to me, realizing for the first time I was in the room. The only thing he liked more than the sound of his own voice was the sight of his own handwriting, I asked. People turned to me, realizing for the first time I was in the room. The only thing he liked more than the sound of his own voice was the sight of his own handwriting, I said. When he died, he didn't have any of his journals on him. He lived with Anchor for a while, Bryn said. They broke up last winter and Clay took it kind of badly. No one knows what they were fighting about, though. For a year and a half they were inseparable, then a week of quarreling and it was over. They were fighting about you though. For a year and a half, they were inseparable. Then a week of quarreling, and it was over.

They were fighting about Ulyxie, Doomsday said. Anchor worshipped it as it was, didn't need to know anything more about it. Clay wanted to understand it, so he moved into the basement of that gas station down by the bridge, where it lives. He moved in with it, I asked. Doomsday nodded. So if Clay left notebooks, they'd be there? Doomsday nodded. We have to go get them. Bring them to Rebecca. Doomsday was lost in thought. Slowly, she nodded. The dear thing, I said. It's only up during the day, right? Powerless at night? I'll go now. When you know you're going

to do something anyway, it's better not to overthink it. Definitely better not to let your mind linger on the cost-benefit analysis. But going to find his notebooks got me closer to solving both my problems all at once. I could find out what happened to Clay, and I could help this Rebecca person dismiss Ulyxie, and hope Doomsday wasn't going to summon something worse. Something that lived up to her name. I'll take you, Brynn said. I'll lend you my gun in case the ghouls are out, Doomsday said. She crossed the room and went up the stairs. I didn't want the ghouls to be out. Neither of you have to do this, Thursday said. Yeah, we do, Brynn said. Doomsday came down the stairs two at a time, her hand on the banister.

It's gone, she said. My gun's gone. Anyone else would have asked Thursday if he'd put it away the night before, but Doomsday didn't even entertain the possibility that her partner would have handled the fire army responsibly. Eric, Brynn said, during the funeral. No, Doomsday said, we saw him the entire time, except maybe the ten minutes we stepped away. He stayed there the whole time, I said. Eric wouldn't know we had a gun, wouldn't know where it would be. He's never in the house. Kestrel, I said. Wasn't he at the funeral the whole time too? Thursday asked.

I knew I was the most likely third suspect, and what I was about to tell them wasn't going to help. No, I said. Kestrel wasn't there at the end. what I was about to tell them wasn't going to help. No, I said. Kestrel wasn't there at the end. I told them about meeting Eric, about our conversation in the park, about how Kestrel showed up late. He'd had plenty of time to steal the gun. It's not nice to rat people out like that, but it's also not nice to steal people's guns. Doom, Thursday said. Can we keep you away from the windows? Maybe take Brynn's room? He climbed up on the couch to lock the window. Likely there were bars ready to go over the doors. There's not a squatter alive who hasn't been through their house and analyzed all the ways the police might break in.

Hell, usually we've already broken in once ourselves. Thursday left to secure the house against human intruders, and Doomsday made her way, defeated, up the stairs. Brynn and I stood in the living room, facing one another, getting, defeated, up the stairs. Brynn and I stood in the living room, facing one another, getting ready to head into the night. The kitchen timer went off. Dinner was ready. No one was in the mood to enjoy it. We walked down the middle of the street, and I was calmer than I thought I'd be, probably because I had a plan. I had something I was going to do. I wore my pack, emptied but for some essentials. We had no idea how many books we I was going to do. I wore my pack, emptied but for some essentials.

We had no idea how many books we'd be trying to bring with us, so the extra storage was important. It had been dark for hours, and I scanned the power lines for those creepy ghoul birds. Either they weren't there, or I couldn't see them. What I did see were torches. Below us, coming up from the river, people were walking with torches. I counted a dozen specks of flame dancing through the night. Brynn saw them too.

Mourners, she said. People celebrating Ulysses. What? It's a tradition, Brynn said. Any other night it wouldn't be something sinister. Hell, two days ago, I would have been with them. But tonight? It can't be good. She led the way off the street, through a front yard sculpture garden of rusted rebar animals, Ulyxian as ghouls I recognize now. We took shelter in an ivy-covered, roofless house, and peered back out at the street through what was left of a window, and what was left of a kitchen.

The torches came around the bend. Nine adults and three children bore them, each with a homemade animal mask. Goats and geese, sparrows and sheep. One of the figures stood head and shoulders above the crowd. They marched past us in silence. When they turned the next bend in the road, we left our shelter and started back down the hill. The basement door, I learned, was just off the river, near the base of the bridge. We scrambled down a steep path, then hopped from rock to rock along the edge of the water. The trees were thick down here. The gibbous moon cast enough light that we could make our way without turning on our headlamps.

A breeze brought the earthy smell of the forest, and the river was a white noise that drowned out all other ambient sound. What's in it for you? Brynn asked as she clambered over a fallen tree. Why aren't you skipping town? For some of the last months of Clay's life, he'd walked this path every morning and night. You know there's a part of me that hates this place? I asked. It was rhetorical, of course, and Brynnen answered. I'm too stubborn to give up traveling. Clay wasn't. That same stubbornness is going to carry me through. I came here to find out what happened to him. I'm going to. I clambered over a fallen log, the bark digging into my hands. And also, this is clearly the most important reason. Could you imagine just leaving now,

never learning what's going to happen? The fear of missing out would rip my heart out of my chest as surely as that deer. Brynn laughed. I like when she laughed. We continued on along the water, and I heard the dry heave of ghouled animals. I never would have expected that would be a sound I'd come to recognize. We crouched low, peered into the woods. We're almost there, Bryn said. She pointed. The base of the gas station went all the way down to the water, and a chain-link fence stood between us and the door,

with a simple, unlocked gate. Welcome. I'm Dany Threl. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter? Nocturnum, Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you.

Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal tales from the shadows as part of my cultura podcast network available on the iheart radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast hey i'm jack peace thomas the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. I'm Jack Peace Thomas, and I'm inviting you to join me and a vibrant community of literary enthusiasts dedicated to protecting and celebrating our stories. is for the page turners, for those who listen to audiobooks while commuting or running errands, for those who find themselves seeking solace, wisdom, and refuge between the chapters. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Together, we'll dissect classics and contemporary works while uncovering the stories of the

brilliant writers behind them. Blacklit is here to amplify the voices of Black writers and to bring their words to life. Listen to Blacklit on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into how Tex Elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires from the chaotic world of generative ai to the destruction of google search better offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose this season i'm going to be joined by everyone from nobel winning economists to leading journalists in the field and i'll be digging

into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong, though. I love technology. I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough. So join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry

and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. When I focused, I could just make out a dozen silhouettes between us and where we wanted to go. Goats and geese, squirrels and sheep. In all respects but for their lack of organs and ribs, they acted like every barnyard animal I'd ever met. Docile, annoying, and fully aware of the sorrow and emptiness of their captive lives. They're awake, I said. Should we go around? In through the front? Brynn shook her head.

They're awake, I said. Should we go around? In through the front? Brynn shook her head. The trapdoor to the basement is welded shut. Should we, I don't know, herd them somewhere? Get them away from the door? Brynn, still crouching, flicked open her extendable baton.

I sighed, then extended mine. The weight felt good in my hand. Most days, a baton made me think I could take on the world. That night, though, I wasn't so sure it was going to be enough. I wouldn't fight a single living goat by choice, let alone an undead one with all its friends. Brynn stood back up straight and walked right toward our destination. Always afraid, never a coward, I mumbled to myself.

My blood started racing. I stood up, tightened all the straps on my pack, and followed. Animal eyes turned toward us with mute curiosity, which turned to malice as we tried to rush past them. A silent mess of geese got underfoot and lunged for my hands. I started swinging. It wasn't animal abuse, they were dead already. Some of the ones I hit didn't get up again. Brynn was almost to the gate when the goat ran at me. Someone or something had sheared off the beast's horns, presumably before Ulyxia had stolen the creature's ribcage. Not an easy life, or unlife, or whatever.

I pulled back and swung from the hip like a one-handed batter and hit the goat in the skull with all my strength. I must have grown up watching too many zombie movies. Hitting that thing's skull was like hitting a boulder and I probably hurt my hand more than I hurt the goat. Still, the blow seemed

to have stopped its charge. It was still in my way. It tried to bleat, but it had no lungs. I heard a low rumble like distant thunder and turned in time to see a demon bull crash out of the trees and barrel toward us.

Oh, fuck, I said, or Brynn said. I started thrashing at the dumb goat in front of me with the baton. It bit my hand and I dropped the weapon. I dove over it, but my backpack destroyed my attempts at a smooth acrobatic roll, and I landed on my back. Brynn helped me to my feet, and we were through the gate. I swung it shut, dropped the latch,

and was knocked off my feet as the bull slammed into the chain link. The fence post bent to a 45-degree angle, and the beast backed up to charge again. I got up again, clutching my bleeding right hand, and we stumbled in through the open door to the basement and slammed it behind us as though that pitch-dark room offered us safety. We switched on our headlamps. It was a single, large room, like any basement in any shitty house anywhere. A water heater and a furnace and pipes stood out from one wall, and a box spring and mattress lay on the floor in the near corner with simple gray sheets and a pile of ratty old comforters.

A milk crate served as a bedside table, and a short stack of books stood atop. Against the far wall, a blood-red deer with three antlers lay sleeping upon a knee-high pile of rib bones. As soon as my headlamp flashed across Ulyxie, I put my hand over my light, but the demon didn't stir. With the sun below the horizon, he likely couldn't move at all. Bile rose in my throat. The bones Ulyxie slept on weren't the pale white of long-dead sun-bleached corpses. They were gray and yellow and gristly. Some of them, I surmised, were human. Let me see your hand, Bryn said. You're hurt. It's fine, I said. I hadn't really looked to tell if that was true. But I didn't want to look. Not until I was somewhere safe.

It wasn't bleeding horrendously. I wrapped my wounded hand with the bandana from my back pocket, tight enough to keep pressure on the bite. Don't want you turning into a weregoat or something, though, Bryn laughed. It was a nervous laugh, probably because, well, I don't think either of us knew for certain if that was an actual possibility. It'll be fine, I whispered. I went to the books beside Clay's bed while Bryn stood watch. There was a copy of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea,

the copy I'd given him. I opened the front page, saw my own handwriting. Clay, maybe you'll get as much out of this as I did. Under it, he'd written back, Danielle, I think at the end of it, you're more Nemo than I. It took all my presence of mind not to drop the book. Had he known I would come hunting after his ghost and end up looking through his bedside reading? More likely, he'd just written the note absentmindedly. But for fuck's sake, what did I know about the world anymore? The next book was history, something about the Kronstadt Rebellion, obscure Russian history when the Bolsheviks decided to kill all the anarchist sailors. I flipped through it, No notes to me,

but here and there he'd highlighted passages. Last, a spiral-bound notebook. The first couple pages were filled with some college kids' English literature notes. A decade back, Clay had shown me that trick. Punk's Christmas, he called it. When the school year ended, college kids threw out everything from unopened food to art supplies to furniture to computers to, well, obviously notebooks. Head on over to the dumpsters, pick up anything you need. After the rote transcription of some boring lecture in a stranger's hand, however, I saw a page with Clay's handwriting on it. I threw the books into my backpack. From outside the open door, I heard birds. Dawn.

Shit. From outside the open door, I heard birds, dawn, shit. Bryn and I had the same thought at the same time, and we grabbed one another and bolted across the room to crouch behind the furnace. A row of small windows lined the top of one wall. The first hint of color and light came through them a moment later, and Ulyxie stirred. The sheer unreality of the situation took off the worst of my anxiety. Bryn held my good hand so tight

it hurt almost as bad as the one the goat had bitten and we watched Ulyxie rise to face the day. For all the world, he moved like a regular deer, graceful but nervous. If he knew we were there, he made no sign. Instead, he headed for the door and was gone.

We crouched in the encroaching dawn, our hands locked together, our breathing as quiet as we could make it, for a full two minutes before we left to find Rebecca's treehouse. Welcome, I'm Danny Trejo. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter? Nocturnum, Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures.

I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Jack Peace Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit,

the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. I'm Jack Peace Thomas, and I'm inviting you to join me in a vibrant community of literary enthusiasts dedicated to protecting and celebrating our stories. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audiobooks while commuting or running errands, for those who find themselves seeking solace, wisdom, and refuge between the chapters. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry,

we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Together, we'll dissect classics and contemporary works while uncovering the stories of the brilliant writers behind them. Blacklit is here to amplify the voices of Black writers and to bring their words to life. Listen to Blacklit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into how tech's elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season, I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel winning economists to leading journalists in. This season, I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel-winning economists to leading journalists in the field. And I'll be digging into why the products you love

keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong, though. I love technology. I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough.

So join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. A squatter's life is ruled by darkness. Breaking into buildings, digging through trash, even just sneaking up onto rooftops to see the city. All those things are easier and safer to do after dark.

But the sun was up as we marched along and then away from the river. The day before summer solstice, it was going to be up for a long while still. I trained my eyes on the woods for movement. Walking in the forest, you don't see most of the animals. Only once I saw something, something in the branches above us. Could have been a squirrel or a bird. Hell, it could have been a mountain lion. Better a living mountain lion than an undead squirrel. After 20 minutes along the riverbank, it was an hour's hike up to a ravine. There was another way to Rebecca's place, a path that ran up over the top of the hill, but it would have taken us through town. We needed to get Clay's

notes to Rebecca so she could figure out how to perform the ritual, and we couldn't risk running into Ulyxie, or Eric. Brynn led us unerringly with a compass and a laminated U.S. Geographical Survey map. Having a destination, Rebecca's treehouse, and an idea of how to get there were about all I had to prop up my waning courage. While we walked, I let myself wonder more about Eric and Kestrel. They said doomsday and the rest, they were going to summon something worse. I'd play it by ear, I decided. Listen to Rebecca. Decide how much to trust her. We stopped only once to pick at the previous night's dinner from Tupperware. Brynn had a few bottles of cold coffee and caffeine did its best to replace the adrenaline that had been slowly draining out of my system since we'd left the basement.

I love coffee, she said, smiling. I know it's banal to say. I know I'm addicted. I know everyone loves it. I don't care. There's only a small handful of things in this world that make me happy and coffee is one of them. What's another, I asked. We were both slightly delirious. She thought about it for a while. Shit like feeling useful or not paying rent, right? But I'll stick with weaknesses. Romance novels. I fucking love trashy romance. The straighter, the better. The worse the politics, the better. I'll just eat that shit up. That's awesome, I said. Your turn, she said. We capped the coffee, started back up the ravine. I want to say horizons because as often as not, the chance

to get over the closest one is what gets me up in the morning. But you told me about romance novels, so I'll do you one better. Fan fiction. Erotic queer fan fiction. I don't even care what fandom. Give me someone getting it on with a werewolf or a seahorse unicorn or whatever and I'll be happy. Really? I read it on my phone, I said. You know I'm going to have to make fun of you about this, right? You won't be the first one, I said. I'm going to make fun of you about it, but I still want you to read it out loud to me. As soon as we get back to phone signal, I promised. God, my wiring was all kinds of fucked up for the rest of the hike, going crazy from lack of sleep. I was happier than I'd been in months. The treehouse was a beautiful little witch shack,

held a full 30 feet aloft between four narrow pines. Its siding had been blowtorched to black during the finishing process, and there was one porch on the side of the house and another on the roof. The windows were mix-matched and erratically placed. A rope and wood ladder dangled down, inviting us up. A black stovepipe thrust out and up from the side, and on the east slope of the hill like that, I knew it got a full view of dawn. I was in love. Rebecca! Brynn had her tattooed hands up over her mouth to project her voice.

Rebecca! Maybe she's in town, I asked after a few fruitless minutes. You heard Vulture, she's not going anywhere for a while. There's a ward stone, there. Keeps Ulyxie out. Brynn pointed to a single white stone about the size of my head, a circle subtly etched onto its face. Not sure why the ladder is down, though. She tested the ladder.

It held her weight, so she made her way up. I followed. The house was even more gorgeous up close. Rebecca had done an amazing job, down to details like filigree carved into the doorframe and an ore Boris painted on the door. Brynn knocked, no answer. Rebecca, she shouted. I don't think she's here, I said, pointing to a padlock that held the door shut. Shit, Brynn said, stomping her foot on the porch and shaking the trees we were attached to. She went to the nearest window, peered in. She fell back, trembling. If it weren't

for the railing, she might have fallen off the porch. I looked. The sun lit the floor in big squares where it came through the windows, and in one of those squares was a dead woman. She lay on her side with her eyes open, her mouth open. She was so small, almost childlike, but I could see in the lines on her face she'd lived at least a decade longer than me. I knew the hard way that when faced with a corpse, it's up to the person who didn't know the now dead person to handle things. Clay had done it for me once when we found Agnes OD'd.

I'd done it for him a year later, when it had been Sammy with his guts on the wrong side of a knife wound. Can you pick the lock? Brent asked. Clay always said you were good at shit like that. Probably, I said. I pulled a screwdriver from my pack, a large Phillips head with a rubber grip. I took my shirt off, wrapped it around my good hand, and jabbed at the corner of the window to break the glass. It broke with that strange thud that surprises me every time.

Nothing like the sound you hear in movies. You've got to break glass against glass to get a noise like that. I reached through and unlocked the window, opened it, stepped inside. Bryn came in directly after. Some people respond to crisis by shutting down or running. Some people respond to crisis emotionally, which is probably the healthiest way. Myself, I handled crisis by shoving fear and sadness and worry down as far into my gut as I could. It's never nice when all that nasty shit comes up as trauma later, but the practice has kept me alive. Brynn, she was made of the same stuff as me, maybe sterner. She went directly to the corpse, started searching her friend for wounds.

They weren't hard to find. Four bullet holes marked her sleeveless white blouse. All were on her torso, two on her chest, one near her hip, one in between. You know anything about forensics? Bryn asked. No, I said. Neither do I, but I know enough about shooting to tell you that that's a pretty fuck-off bad shot grouping. While Bryn saw to Rebecca, I scoured the rest of the one-room shack. A mattress lay on the floor in the corner. A bookshelf was filled to overfull with dried and tinctured herbs and jars and dropper bottles. Plantain and ragwort and feverfew, plus flowers and leaves I couldn't recognize, hung drying from lines stretched across the space. The wood-burning stove was cold. Since it was June, that didn't

tell me much. An antique desk, the only piece of furniture in the room not hand-built from scrapped lumber, took up most of one wall, under a bank of windows. A ladder led to a trapdoor in the ceiling. Something like a dozen well-carved wooden figurines of deer littered the desktop, each no larger than my palm. They were stained blood-red. A piece of cardboard ripped from a case of beer served as a cutting mat and a staining mat, it looked like, with silhouettes of dark stain and gathered chips of wood. The carving tools themselves were scattered all over the floor. Rebecca's corpse was close to where I stood. My mind wouldn't forget that fact for long enough to concentrate on anything else. Bullet holes pierced the plywood along the back wall. The bullets went out the back, I said, running my

finger along the splintered wood. Who the fuck, Bryn said. Eric, I said. We don't know that. Yeah, we do, I said. Who the hell else? Kestrel, maybe. But I bet it was Eric. Bryn closed Rebecca's eyes, then kept searching the body. She has a knife in her hand, a carving knife. Tears welled up, catching me by surprise. Here was a woman, cut down by a man afraid of her power. She'd fought back,

knife versus gun. I never got to meet her, I said. I've got the feeling I really missed out. Yeah, Bryn said. I want to kill him, I said. It was true, a simple thing, a clear epiphany. I wanted to kill Eric for killing this woman, even though it could have been Kestrel. I wanted to kill Eric for killing her. Ulyxie might do it for you, Bryn said.

Imagine his thinking, I said. He's got to have thought this through killing rebecca means saving ulexi means he's doomed himself to being killed by ulexi imagine being so sure of the righteousness of your cause you're willing to sacrifice your own ideals to achieve them every politician ever brin said every authoritarian communist he killed her in cold blood i said i couldn't think straight. Killed her. She came up and wrapped her arms around me, and I buried my head into her chest, and my anger turned into something like sorrow. I cried.

Standing over the body of her friend, she supported me. We've got to get back, I said, pulling away. I stepped out of the treehouse. The air outside was fresh, cleansing. Brynn joined me, and I went to the ladder and looked down. Ulyxie stood silent, staring up at us from the ground. There was a hammock on the porch on the roof. Thick cotton rope held our weight and our feet dangled over the edge like we were teenagers on a date, instead of squatters hiding from a demon and a corpse. I can't stay there all day, I said. I had a friend in town about six months back. You know how you think you know somebody and then they just do

something awful, beat their partner, abuse someone, something like that? Yeah, I said. So this guy I lived with, my friend Greg, I liked him alright. He was friendly, hardworking, really polite. His partner Sam, no one liked her. She used to throw shit fits at General Assembly, hoard booze from the Everything for Everyone, that kind of thing. She worked hard too, I guess, but I don't know. She just rubbed everyone the wrong way. She and Greg had been together maybe three months when one night they were drunk and he raped her. I don't know if he thought he raped her, but that never really matters. She didn't want to have sex with him that night and he did it anyway. Yeah, it doesn't really matter what he thinks about that. The next day, the very next day,

before she's even told anyone, Greg walks outside our house and there's Ulixi, just standing on the porch, just looking at him. He goes the fuck back inside and he waits. Ulixi's out there, not moving until sunset. The rest of us come and go, but that fucking deer was just waiting for him, watching him. What happened? As soon as night fell, Sam drove him up to Minneapolis, kicked him out of the car, and said if she ever saw him again, she'd kill him herself. I whistled.

Moral of the story is that Ulyxie most definitely can stay there all day. We're not predators, I said. No, but we're hunting for a way to dismiss it, aren't we? I can see why you all kind of like having it around, though, with a story like that. I'm not going to tell you it hasn't been nice, Bryn said, up until the point when it wasn't. I'm always so quick to resort to violence, I said. I'm not ashamed of that. I think it's necessary sometimes. But damn, it'd be nice to be able to just quit violence cold turkey. Let a spell take care of it for me. There's no magic bullet though, Bryn said.

Never was, never will be, I agreed. It should have been a beautiful day. It was warm enough that the breeze felt good, but not hot enough to be uncomfortable. Fuck, I said, how are we going to dismiss it now? I guess it's up to doomsday. Yeah. We were halfway up to the canopy, and I could see the forest and the river and the prairie in the distance. More herbs hung drying all around us, and their scents combined to be just short of overwhelming. More important, Brynn sat next to me, all worked up to sweating from everything, and her smell was overwhelming. She had her arm around the small of my waist. Mine was around her back. Let me see your hand, she said. No, it's fine. The bandana was still

wrapped tight around the wound. My palms still hurt, but I wasn't ready to look at it. There was an awful lot of shit going on just then that I wasn't ready to let myself think too much about. God, I wish you'd shown up like a month ago or something, Brynn said. What do you mean? It'd be nice to get to know you proper, Brynn said, instead of like this. Oh, you don't like demon hunting with me, I asked. Brynn giggled. I looked at her, and she must have gotten self-conscious about giggling,

because she started giggling harder, covering her face and laughing. She fell onto her side in the hammock, and I had my arms around her, and I started laughing too. What a fucking day, I said. What a fucking day, she agreed. We both fell asleep like that, curled up on the hammock. I dreamt about jail. A few hours later, I broke out of dream jail by waking up, but I was still trapped. I peered over the edge of the treehouse roof, and Ulyxie peered right back at me, but I was still trapped. I peered over the edge of the treehouse roof, and Ulyxie peered right back at me. The bull was beside him. That woke me up all the way, and I looked to the trees around me. Squirrels and birds, all undead, sat silent on the branches not

ten feet from my head, all staring at me with their glossy eyes. Like as not, they'd been there for hours already, and they didn't seem to want to attack. Just watch. Just bore into me. Brynn was snoring, her head craned back. I trusted her, I realized. Everything around me was terrifying and none of it made sense. But Brynn seemed to accept it, and I was learning to accept her. Freedom ran on trust. I needed to trust someone. I flipped through Clay's notebook. His handwriting only graced 12 pages. On each, he'd written the same single line.

The only way out is through. The last page had another line underneath the first. What hand dare seize the fire? He'd always been saying shit like that. When you needed advice, he was always there, saying something needlessly cryptic, but reasonably wise. I wish he'd listened to his own advice, though. I wish he'd kept going.

I wish he'd found his way through. Sitting there, then, with the sun dappled through the leaves and the needles of the forest, I tried to piece out what had happened to him. sun dappled through the leaves and the needles of the forest, I tried to piece out what had happened to him. At his funeral, I thought he'd given up because there wasn't any future in riding the rails. But that wasn't it. It couldn't be it. That was me seeing more of me in him than there really was. Motherfucker had spent 15 years looking for the hobo utopia, the big rock candy mountain, until he just gave up and made the place. Then he defended it with the witchcraft he knew. Then he'd run away. Then he'd done Ulyxie's work all on his own and

ended his own life. Why? Maybe because he'd been exiled from paradise by a beast of his own making. Maybe because he decided freedom was home and he couldn't come back. That's what having a home will do to you, maybe. I dropped the notebook onto the hammock. Brynn woke up. The only way out is through, I said. Pardon? I showed Brynn the pages. We did all this and we've got nothing. Nothing from Clay, nothing from Rebecca, and we can't get home to warn anyone there's a killer on the loose. warn anyone there's a killer on the loose. That's funny, Bryn said. That's not the quote. Quote? He says the best way out is always through, and I agree to that, or insofar as that I can see no way out but through. It's from a Robert Frost poem, A Servant to Servants. It's a true statement, I guess, I said, but it doesn't do us any good. He got the other one closer. What the Hand Dare Seize the Fire, I guess, I said. But it doesn't do us any good. He got the other one closer.

What the hand dare seize the fire. The Tiger by William Blake. That line mean anything to you, I asked. Hell, it means even less to me than the Robert Frost. Clay moved into the gas station because he was studying Ulysses, right? Trying to learn how to dismiss it. Yeah. And the only thing he wrote down, I said, in all that time

was some misquoted poetry. I guess. Here, come downstairs with me. I went to the hatch in the roof, opened it, and climbed down the ladder. The house stank of death, leaving us gagging, and I opened all the windows that could be opened. We tried our best not to stare at the dead woman on the floor. For a few hours more, we just had to keep ourselves from thinking too hard about her. These, I said, pointing to the twelve deer figurines on the desk. What do you make of these? She was obsessed, Bryn said.

Half the town is obsessed, though. She held up her hand, showing me her Ulysses tattoo. I picked up one of the red figures and, on a whim, lined it up to the dark outlines of stain on the cardboard that marked where it had been painted. I did the same with the rest, a sort of simple jigsaw puzzle. They formed a circle, each facing clockwise. The figure at one o'clock was on its side, and the figure at twelve stood over it, its mouth down by the other's ribs. Like it was killing it. Like it was eating its heart. I don't know what it means, I said. I don't think it's a coincidence, though. Clay writing 12 pages and Rebecca carving 12 figurines? No, I don't suppose it is.

Oh, I said, 12 pages, 12 figures, 12 months, solstice to solstice. It's just telling us that our only chance is tomorrow, which we already knew. Which we already knew, she agreed. Hooray. But what are they gonna do, Robert Evans? Well, I don't know,

Margaret, but you being my friend who always has a cryptic response to everything anyone says, I'm excited to find out. Yeah. When I first started writing these two characters was a very long time ago. I've been writing Clay and Daniel Cain for like, since I was like 20 and clay was always the, the guy standing there with cryptic things to say, I think I'm just trying to grow into him. What were you saying? I do.

I do like that. One of the through lines here is you've got, there's both like a lot of focus on how careful these, uh, these punk kids are with their guns, uh, and how not careful they are with magic, which,

uh, yeah, I enjoy like one of them are with magic, which, uh, yeah, I enjoy like one of them is the very, like, because the, the harm and the danger is incredibly clear with a gun, right? You've got like an end and the thing comes out of the end and you want to be

real careful that nothing is in front of that end that you don't want things through. Yeah. Uh, whereas the magic is much, much less unclear and how it functions in some ways. And so it, it leads to this kind of,

I don't know, maybe recklessness on behalf of the protagonists. Oh, that is interesting. I know that makes sense to me. And it's like, kind of like, you know,

this, this, like maybe by the time there's 10 of these books, there'll be like going around and teaching magic safety classes. Yeah. Well, it's also, it's interesting just because there's 10 of these books, they'll be like going around and teaching magic safety classes. Yeah. Well, it's also, it's interesting just because there's also a very,

I mean, a very punk attitude towards it. Like I think about the ways in which like a lot of the, the older anarchist punks that I know treat the police, the kind of like the, the, the, the,

the, the very, the great care and sort of like wariness with which they treat the police and then the recklessness with which they treat something like a train yeah totally yeah oh better be careful there's police around be real careful that like i'm gonna hop on this moving beast yeah and if you get scared just drink some whiskey and that'll help you yeah yeah that'll get you straight god God, I like, definitely. I always had two rules about train hopping.

You don't hop on while it's moving and you always hop on sober until the one day when the only way to get out of Milwaukee was to hop on a moving train. And so I was scared. So we all drank whiskey in order to get unscared. Don't do what I did. It was bad.

I almost saw my friend get sucked under the wheels and someone the the kid who was showing us the hop out spot like pulled her back away from the fucking wheels now i did a an interview that has always stuck with me when i was at cracked for an article with this young woman in a boulder who was doing train hopping on the college campus and went just timed it badly and lost both her legs yeah the the older punk she was jumping with was a former army medic and tourniqueted her legs like on the spot is the only reason she didn't die yeah and then got blamed like got blamed because he was the older one yeah like inciting her to jump and she was like well no i was everyone did this all of the dumb kids we all did train hopping he's the he didn't get me killed he's the only

reason i didn't die yeah um but god yeah if you're listening don't jump on moving trains and don't jump on moving trains do it sober but also do be careful with your guns too yes yeah totally and magic probably if that's real. I don't know. Oh, I was going to advise people to be real reckless with that shit. Oh, okay. Yeah, you know. Yeah.

What could go wrong? Yeah. Well. All right, Margaret. Well, that's this episode in the can. Yep. See you all next Sunday for another episode of Cool Zone Book Club. That's right. With the vocal fry. That's an important part of the Book Club. That's right.

With the vocal fry. That's an important part of the... Yeah. Yeah. Bye. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

You can find sources for It Could Happen Here updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com slash sources. Thanks for listening. You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadow. Join me, Danny Trails, and step into the flames of riot. An anthology podcast of modern day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturnal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or stay with his relatives in Miami? Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.