Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

I think it would be instructive to hear the tale of the enchanter who wanted to be a cobbler, and the cobbler who wanted to be an enchanter.

No?

I’ll skip to the end then. They were both miserable at it, and they both died. The moral is, don’t challenge the natural order of things, or you’ll get burned.

What’s that?

Why the natural order of things is how they are right now, of course. What else would it be?

I don’t care if you disagree. We have more than tales to keep this order, if it comes to that.

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Jim Decker stepped out onto the apartment’s tiny porch, his bright blond hair cascaging in curly rivulets from underneath a rawhide cowboy hat. He was wearing a clear hazmat slicker and gloves, with mirrored shades and a disposable mask making it difficult to see anything but the laugh lines on his face. “Come to see how a real professional does things, Robinson?”

Alan pulled off his cap, swept back his hair–being curly as the dickens, it immediately bounced back–and then replaced it, a calculated gesture of casual contempt. “I dunno,” he said. “You still suspended from doing supernatural, paranormal, and cryptid cleanup in the great state of Mississippi and all adjoining territories?”

Decker’s mask twitched, indicating an ugly snarl. “That auditor had it in for me, and you know it.”

“Whatever you say, friend,” Alan replied. “Taking paranormal carcasses and dumping them in the back forty instead of burning them seems pretty legit to an ordinary joe like me.”

Decker stomped up to Alan, his bulky cowboy boots clomping, and he whipped off his mirrored shades, revealing a pair of incredibly blue eyes to go with his Nordic locks. “About as legit as being banned from the handling or disposal of human remains in those selfsame territories like you are, Robinson?”

“Well, now, I’d say that’s a matter of perspective,” Alan said. “If you never take the test, did you really fail it?”

“Once my suspension’s over, I guess we’ll see,” Decker said. “Maybe I’ll hire you as an intern, seeing as you’ll be unable to compete with my prices and overall competence.”

“Sorry, Jim, I got an intern of my own,” Alan said, gesturing at Jen. “You know interns can’t have interns; fundamental law of the universe right there. I don’t make the rules; hands’re tied.”

Decker squinted at Jen, replacing his mirrored glasses. “That you, Dink?” he said. “I thought you were at university or something.”

“Yeah, funny thing about being at college is you don’t stay there forever,” Jen said.

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“Dink?” Johnson said, squinting. “That you? What you doing hanging around with this glorified janitor?”

“Internship,” Jen said. “Paid internship. Trying to work my way up to funeral home director, medical examiner, or forensic chemistry.”

“I guess things is always dying. Steady business. Death and taxes.” Johnson shrugged. “You’re still fat, though.”

“Thank you for telling me so, Mr. Johnson,” Jen said with a smirk. “I’m not sure I would’ve noticed otherwise.”

“Anyone ever tell you you’d be real pretty if you lost some weight and smiled more?”

“All the time, Mr. Johnson,” Jen replied. “In fact, I have it pre-engraved on my tombstone. ‘Finally lost some weight, finally smiling.'”

Johnson snorted, though with his MAGA mask and weathebeaten old poker face there was no way to tell if he was amused, annoyed, or some unholy combination of both. “Go on then, get to it. Let me know when you’re done and how much it’ll be. Decker’ll be out in a sec.”

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“I called Decker to clean up the murdered fella in my rental,” Johnson said. “I called you to clean up the unicorn what killed him.”

“Well, Mr. Johnson, we at Robinson Cleaning are at your service with reasonable rates and quick turnarounds.” Alan Robinson shot a quick, sidelong glance at the “Decker & Co Royal Flush Cleaning” truck already in the lot. “As soon as that lazy roustabout Jim Decker is done, of course.”

Johnson squirted something from between his front two teeth into the grass. “You think you can do better? You saying I should’ve called you instead?”

“No, sir,” Alan said. “Decker’s the once licensed and bonded by the great state of Mississippi to clean up natural crime scenes. But I’m the one licensed and bonded by the great state of Mississippi to clean up supernatural messes, and I think you’ll fine I leave much less of my job for the other fella to do.”

“We’ll see about that. I’m already in two grand on this place just to get it rented again. Damn Chinese virus is bad enough for business without a man bleeding out on my carpets, and putting two bullet holes in my walls to take that damn horny-horse with him besides.”

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Each category is assigned a level from one to five, represented by Roman numerals. This “class” represents in a general way the overall danger to life and limb the supernatural creature in question poses. Type I is the least dangerous, and Type V is the most dangerous.

That is not to say that this is equivalent to a Fujitsu tornado scale, naturally. It is entirely possible to be killed by a Type I creature or to have amicable, peaceful relations with a Type V. But a healthy human would ordinarily have little to fear from even the most aggressive Type I, while even a peaceful Type V could–if they wanted–be a terrifying opponent.

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At some long-distant future family gathering, as the talk turns to loved ones and fellowship, someone might ask about my grandmother, Catherine Watson. What will I tell them?

This is what I will say. That’s her over there on the bookshelf, in the stories and novels she wrote. That’s her on the desk, in her correspondence with a far-flung family. That’s her in the cornerstones of a dozen churches across the nation. That’s her in the box of stones from the Holy Land, the many gifts she gave, the many sacrifices she made.

But most importantly, she is all around us in the smiling faces of family and friends. The answer to the question of who Catherine Watson is remains the same, now after she has passed, as it will ever be. She is all of us, each in a different way.

-Alex P. Watson

Manifestations
Not everything can exist in normal reality–the place they come from is just too different. In that case, they appear as a manifestation, which is able to function in our reality. Manifestations are varied in form and function, but the result is always the same: killing the manifestation does not and cannot harm the original, though they do tend to avoid the places where their manifestations were slain.

Entities
Entities are living, or quasi-living, things that do not seem to follow the normal rules of life: they seldom reproduce, often do not eat, and may be completely incorporeal. Their unpredictable appearance, behavior, and interactions make them by far the most dangerous supernatural creatures that can be encountered.

Beings
Sentient creatures that are roughly equivalent to humans in terms of intelligence and temperament but choose to remain aloof, hidden, or otherwise disengaged from human affairs. This includes those few who live among or are able to pass for human as well as others who disdain contact but are able to communicate. Beings have far more to fear from humans than vice-versa, though in a one-on-one scuffle any given being ill often have the upper hand.

Beasts
Much like beings, beasts are of roughly animal intelligence and behavior, albeit with unusual properties or characteristics that defy known laws of physics and/or zoology. Unlike beings, they are usually unable to intelligently communicate, though peaceful interactions are sometimes possible.

Spirits
Spirits include any creature that was formerly alive and has continued to display signs of life after death. This goes not seem to prevent them from dying a second time, or at least being destroyed, and even incorporeal spirits leave traces of their passage.

Hybrids
The aforementioned categories can all exist as hybrids as well; since the laws of physics do not seem to apply in some cases, the laws of reproduction do not seem to either. As such, it is common to find humans, animals, and even plants that have mixed roots. The results can be unpredictable, to say the least.

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“We can’t go any further until you tell me why everyone in town–except me, apparently–calls you Dink.”

Jen smiled wanly. “Tell you what. You figure it out, I buy you lunch.”

“Well, now.” Alan hooked his thumbs in his belt loops. “My wife’ll confirm that betting me lunch is a dangerous game. When I’m paying, I get meals made by Ronald McDonald or Chef Boyardee. When someone else is paying, I take lunch at Ponce De Leon’s Bistro downtown.”

“They even open right now?”

“They do curbside. And they make a gourmet chicken cordon bleu sandwich like you wouldn’t believe. Local cheese, local bread, taste that’s out of this world. Starts at $25, and that’s before I order the house kettle chips.” Alan paused, turned away for a drag on his cigarette, and then turned back. “Which I will.”

“That suits me just fine,” Jen said. “But you gotta do it honest. No asking anybody straight, cuz I’ll find out.”

“Fair enough,” said Alan. “You catch me doing that, I owe you lunch at Poncey’s.”

“We need a deadline, then, to make it a proper gentleman’s wager.”

“End of this week. My week starts Monday, so Monday next.”

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“Well, near as I can tell, you’ve got a Class III hybrid manifestation,” Shanika said, scrubbing her hands vigorously. “Normal corporeal matter, but with a definite touch of the exotic. Pretty rare.”

“How rare is pretty rare?” Jen said.

“Well, my predecessor as coroner, old Josiah Washington Jr., saw a total of two Class III hybrids and one Class IV hybrid in his career, if that gives you any indication.”

“And he was coroner for, what was it, twenty years?” said Alan.

“Thirty-five. And the Class IV was the thing that retired him.” Shanika looked up. “Tell me again what this precocious little scamp was doing?”

“Breaking into the Providence Missionary Baptist Church Of All Nations,” Alan said. “Trying to eat the caretaker

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“You hauled in a marlin here, kids,” Shanika said. “Hand me my murder bag, will you?”

Alan reached over and grabbed the old-fashioned black bag that rested on the countertop between an old CRT set to (muted and subtitled) daytime TV a stack of autopsy reports.

Shanika reached in and produced a battery-powered circular saw, the sort used for light drywall work. A few quick revs to make sure it had a charge, and she leaned in over the horror that Alan and Jen had retrieved.

“Aren’t you going to use a scalpel?” Jen said.

“Too much CSI: Miami huh?” Shanika said, looking up. “Look, if you want to try sawing through whatever this bad boy has in what passes for his chest with nothing but an Xacto knife and hope, be my guest. But around here, we use power tools to do the heavy lifting.”

Jen visibly blanched at the thought.

“Nobody said you had to look,” Shanika said, leaning forward with the saw. Then, almost as an afterthought: “You might wanna step back, though.”

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