Loathsome, Dark and Deep
by Aaron Polson

Print ISBN-13: 978-1-926912-14-1
Editor: Jodi Lee
Publisher: Belfire Press
Pages: 204
Dimensions: 5.25″x8″
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E-book ISBN-13: 978-1-926912-15-8
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Kindle ISBN-13: 978-1-926912-16-5
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Civil War veteran Henry Barlow hasn’t carried a gun since his wife’s brutal murder, a memory he drowns nightly with bourbon and whiskey. When reports of the strange goings on at the Lewis River camp reach H&P, they send Barlow and a small band of armed mercenaries upriver to investigate.

“With shades of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, and highly appealing to fans of Max Brooks’ World War Z and its epistolary “documentary style” narrative, Loathsome is an absorbing read.”
– Darkeva, Hellnotes

“Polson weaves a solid narrative using aspects of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, the basis for the film Apocalypse Now, giving it a dark horror, somewhat steampunk and certainly more American spin.”
– Don Campbell, Future Fire Reviews

“Be on guard, Olson,” I called ahead.

Silas drew in a deep breath through his nose. Moisture from the damp air clogged my nostrils with the reek of fish and mud, the trees pressed upon us. The splashing stopped. Blood beat against my eardrums. The things came with another thunderous crash of water.
They attacked the Raven first.

I watched the boat toss to one side before I saw them. Silas bolted to the front of our boat, wielding his rifle in one hand while grappling with a rope in the other. The engine growled as Captain Grieg forced the throttle down, pushing us to catch the other craft. I was naked. No gun. No want to fight.

They were men, but men who rose out of the brown muck of the river. Men who were driven to tear at our flesh with their nails and teeth, blinded by something like hunger until they were no longer men. We came alongside the Raven, and I saw one of the ghouls snarling inches away from Jim’s face. Teeth snapped open and shut, spittle spurted out, and veins looked ready to burst from its head. The eyes were the worst, black and empty yet burning with hunger and hate. Jim managed a foot in its groin, and the thing toppled overboard with a splash. Another of the ghouls latched on to the front of their boat and pulled itself to a crouch.

“John!” Silas shouted, and in the next instant, he cracked off a shot with his Winchester. The ghoul’s head split open in a plume of crimson, sending the body staggering backwards. John lowered the butt of his gun and thrust it in the thing’s gut. The headless body thrashed backwards, tumbled over the bow, and swept under the hull. John nodded to Silas.

“You mangy sons-of-bitches,” Captain Grieg yelled.

Two ghouls were on our boat, one with its teeth through the Captain’s pants on his crippled leg. Grieg’s hands tugged at his belt. The blade of his knife flashed in quick arc, and sliced through the meat on the side of the ghoul’s face. Its dental grip loosened, and it clutched the rail of the pilot’s perch with one white-knuckled hand. Blood poured across its features, thick and dark, but the mouth continued to snap open and shut, lurching for Grieg a second time until Silas shot it through the neck at point blank range. The corpse toppled backwards into the water.

The other ghoul tried to scramble atop the furnace and scalded its skin on the hot metal. The poor brute howled and latched onto the stack, redoubling its cries as the air around our boat filled with the acrid stench of burnt flesh seared against the hot metal. Silas shot it through the chest, and the thing’s wild eyes rolled back into its head. It slumped forward, dislodging the stack as its shoulder crashed into the base. A flash of brass caught my eye at the base of the ghoul’s skull.

Silas hopped to the deck, worked himself past the pilot’s perch, and heaved the body over. He then turned to me with a wild look, a fevered, bleary-eyed fire. “Get us the hell out of here!”

I stumbled from the floor of the cabin, hoisted myself onto the pilot’s perch next to the slumping form of Captain Grieg, and forced the throttle forward. The air behind me filled with the rattle of lumber forced into our small furnace as Silas stoked the fire. The engine sputtered and chugged, nearly killing us with smoke before the screw engaged and pushed us upriver. Our smokestack was broken free of the engine, and we couldn’t travel far in that condition.

As we staggered in the current, I heard voices in the trees. Whether my imagination or not, I thought I heard the phrase “let them go.”