Backstage at the Calamity, Vol. I No. IX: Immortality Gets a Facelift, Unholy Requiem Gets Closer to ARC, and of course, the Groundskeeper Part IX

Announcements

Calypso

Showdown at Sunrise

With the publishing of Calypso, Showdown at Sunrise will go up in price from 1.99 USD to 2.99 USD. The price change will occur on March 13, 2025. If you have not already purchased your copy, save a buck and do so before the price goes up! You can order the story from Apple Books or Barnes and Noble.

What the F*CK did I Work On This Week?

The big project this week was getting Calypso up and out! Between rewriting the story, working through edits, and drafting the book cover, this story required a substantial amount of my time to process and complete. But it is finally finished and I am so excited to present this story to you.

The Groundskeeper and A Vampire’s Vengeance both saw new chapters written. We are humming along with the hero, the Groundskeeper, and excitement continues to rise with each chapter written and published. What will befall our protagonist? Only forthcoming chapters will tell.

Additionally, Unholy Requiem has seen quite a bit of love, with two more chapters completed in their review, bringing it to about halfway to completion. My advance readers are ready to receive it, and when they do, this will be a major step to bringing the book to publishing.

And now, the moment we’ve all been waiting for …

The Groundskeeper, Part IX

First time tuning in? Start here.

When last we saw our hero, they found themselves in a conundrum with how to manage a zombie while attempting to dig out the coffin from which it sprouted. They discovered a viable solution to keep themselves from being bitten, but they have yet to re-inter the zombie. Let’s see how that’s coming along.

Continued from Part VIII.

Okay, zombie secured, time to finish digging up its coffin. I jog back over to its grave to resume my work, wanting to get this over and done with. As I’m digging, I wonder if there are more efficient ways of dealing with this shit. They didn’t provide me with an employee handbook, but it doesn’t mean there isn’t one, and maybe there are details in it on how best to manage the walking dead.

I am sweating so fucking much by the time I feel the shovel hit the top of the coffin. It’s a cool night, which just shows how much effort I put in to getting this far down as quickly as I could. I feel some relief at that initial hit, but I shoo it away. I still have to clear the rest of the dirt from the top before I can crack it open. I busy myself doing exactly that, and it feels like it takes almost as long to clear the lid as it did to dig to the coffin in the first place. But I get it done and I’m moderately surprised to find the coffin is made out of chipboard.

Honestly, what the fuck?

Okay, maybe the family wasn’t well off and this is all they could afford. I could understand that, except the tombstone over this grave is fancy. Like, really fancy. It's a goddamned marble sculpture. I find it hard to swallow the family would ditch a fine coffin and pour all of that money into a piece of art only other mourners would ever see. Though, maybe that was the point. Maybe the zombie was a bit eccentric in life, and the family was going along with their wishes. “An artist to the end,” they probably said about this person.

But none of that tracks either. This chipboard coffin is fresh. That zombie was fuckin’ moldy, very obviously dead for years and years. If I had to make an educated guess—and even I know I’m not the brightest—I think this zombie getting up and out is a regular occurrence. Looking at the hole it made to crawl out of, I guess replacing a fine coffin over and over again would get real expensive real quick. Which leaves me in a bit of a bind. Once I get the zombie back into the coffin, how am I going to make sure it stays if the lid is all fucked up?

This is a problem I set my mind to as I begin digging around the coffin to make some space so I can pry the lid off. I’m just about finished when I become aware of mist swirling into and out of the grave. I look up to find a thick wall of mist covering the grave. I was so focused on digging, I didn’t even notice the mist rolling in. Well fuck, how does this complicate things? I have to go back and get the zombie, and I have to find a replacement for the lid, and I don’t know how I’m going to do that if I can’t see anything once I climb out of this grave.

I’m sure I’ll figure something out. I start to climb out of the grave, and as my head enters the mist, I’m hit with the screams, cries, howls, and other disturbing sounds I heard earlier when coming out of the interdimensional portal—or whatever it was—in the employee hall. My hackles rise, and a chill runs all the way up my spine. I slip back into the grave, noticing the sounds die down as if muffled, and look up at the wall of mist. There is a rather important detail I missed a moment ago.

It’s green. “The green mist is not your problem. Leave it alone.”

Oh my god. What now?

To be continued …

What’s Published and Where You Can Find It

These are the top stories currently in circulation.

Odds ‘n’ Endings Stories

These stories share a single connective thread through them all: the Odds ‘n’ Endings Boutique. The Proprietor—a timeless individual of many faces, few scruples, and a whole lot of character—deals in artifacts, each containing peculiar traits. These are the stories of the Boutique’s patrons.

Postscript

Here we are, another week, another installment of the Groundskeeper, and another story moving into preorder! This is all very exciting, watching the narrator as they move through the grounds of the cemetery, and also as a completely different story comes to life and takes flight. If you have the luxury to do so, please consider preordering Calypso; short story sales will contribute to additional stories being published. Also, if you are on the butterfly app, come follow me! You can find me on Bluesky here.

Acknowledgements

• Overall design by L V N A C Y

• “The Groundskeeper” background image by Chris Anderson on Unsplash