Exigencies: A Neo-Noir Anthology

Edited by Richard ThomasForeword by Chuck WendigCover art by Daniele SerraInterior illustrations by Luke SpoonerTABLE OF CONTENTS:Wilderness by Letitia TrentMonster Season by Joshua BlairCat Calls by Rebecca Jones-HoweCeremony of the White Dog by Kevin CatalanoThe Armadillo by Heather FosterThe Last Manuscript by Usman T. MalikSingle Lens Reflection by Jason MetzThe Mother by Nathan BeauchampEverything in Its Place by Adam PetersonWhen We Taste of Death by Damien Angelica WaltersFigure Eight by Brendan DetznerMy Mother's Condition by Faith GardnerFragile Magic by Alex KaneThe Eye Liars by Sarah ReadSearching for Gloria by W. P. JohnsonAnd All Night Long We Have Not Stirred by Barbara DuffeyDull Boy by David James KeatonBrujeria for Beginners by Marytza RubioHeirloom by Kenneth CainThe Owl and the Cigarette by Amanda GowinDesert Ghosts by Mark JaskowskiBlood Price by Axel Taiari

Craig Wallwork, author of The Sound of Loneliness

“From the shadows that dwell in some of the most creative, and gifted minds around, emerges a collection of short stories that will skulk across the footplate of literature for many years to come. Exigencies is the cloak thrown over the world, to show us that in darkness we can still find beauty, and will forever serve as a keepsake to great writing.”

Nik Korpon, author of Stay God “From the shadows that dwell in some of the most creative, and gifted minds around, emerges a collection of short stories that will skulk across the footplate of literature for many years to come. Exigencies is the cloak thrown over the world, to show us that in darkness we can still find beauty, and will forever serve as a keepsake to great writing.” —Craig Wallwork, author of The Sound of Loneliness “These pages house some of the most exciting writers you’ve never heard of—yet. They make the mundane terrifying, the poignant macabre, the violent touching. The only thing you won't find is the expected, because these stories will move the ground beneath your feet. Brace yourself." —Nik Korpon, author of Stay God

“These pages house some of the most exciting writers you’ve never heard of―yet. They make the mundane terrifying, the poignant macabre, the violent touching. The only thing you won't find is the expected, because these stories will move the ground beneath your feet. Brace yourself."

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

From "Wilderness" by Letitia Trent:The airport was small, squat like a compound, its walls interrupted in regular intervals by tall, shaded windows. When Krista looked out the windows, the sky seemed slate-grey and heavy, but when the front doors opened, she remembered that it was really blue and cloudless outside.She was early for her flight back to New Haven. She liked to arrive at the very earliest times that the flight website recommended. She was prepared to wait, liked it even. It was calming to have nothing to do and nowhere she had to be. She had brought a book about the history of wilderness and America, something left over from college that she had never read. She liked the cover, a picture of a Pilgrim family, small and sickly, their clothes black and heavy on their bony bodies, facing an expanse of trees so tall and green you could see nothing beyond them. She underlined phrases in the book out of old college habit: Wilderness remained a place of evil and spiritual catharsis. Any place in which a person feels stripped, lost, or perplexed, might be called a wilderness.She shared a red, plush armrest with a large woman who had almost incandescent, butter-blonde hair. Her skin was so tan that it reminded Krista of a stain. Coffee on blonde wood.The blonde had apparently just come from a trip to Maine. She told an older woman next to her—an even larger woman with tight pin-curls and wire-rimmed glasses, wearing those boxy, pleated shorts that middle-aged women often wear on holidays—about her trip. The blonde had stayed in the cutest hotel. Her entire room had been done up all nautical. The other woman nodded in agreement with everything the blonde said, as if she had had an identical experience.Krista watched the airport attendants and one airport policeman patrol the area. They sometimes stepped into the waiting room and observed the crowd with what appeared to be either worry or constipation (they pressed their lips together, their hands on their hips, and blew the air from their mouths as if making silent raspberries). They had a vague air of agitation. She watched them carefully for signs of what might be wrong, but they revealed nothing in their pacing. Nobody else seemed to notice.On Krista’s left, opposite the blonde, was a family, a mother and two children separated from her by one seat. The mother was thin and loud and wore shorts with many utilitarian pockets and a simple tank shirt without a bra. She seemed infinitely capable, as if she ran her own business or perhaps even managed some kind of sports team. Krista admired thin, efficient women like this, women who wore comfortable, rubber-soled sandals and clothing with enough functional pockets. The woman and her children all spoke on their individual cell phones, all telling somebody variations on the news that they would arrive soon, that it was only thirty minutes until boarding.An announcement crackled over the loudspeakers, the sound delivered in one chunk of indiscernible static.Krista looked around the room, hoping for the scraps of somebody else’s conversation to explain what had just been said.Plane’s delayed for an hour, the blonde said to her husband, who had also missed it. Storms down in Boston.A general grumble rose. People shifted in their seats and took out their recently stowed cell phones. The blonde woman called her husband’s name, which Krista immediately forgot.Phone me up a pizza, she told him. I won’t eat that shit from the vending machine.

About the Author

Richard Thomas is the author of six books—Disintegration, The Breaker, Transubstantiate, Herniated Roots, Staring Into the Abyss and The Soul Standard. His over 100 stories in print include Cemetery Dance, PANK, Gargoyle, Weird Fiction Review, Midwestern Gothic, Arcadia, Qualia Nous, Chiral Mad 2, and Shivers VI.

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