The 73rd Delusion

Eleven Staples in My Head

Tuesday, May 20th, I cheated death.

I think that stands up as a paragraph on its own. In a book it could even constitute a whole chapter for the sake of emphasis and shock value. In my life it certainly does. As I get older, I have to start thinking about things like my mortality. How my life decisions influence my inevitable outcome. How my choices either encourage the Reaper to hover closer or leave me be for a while. And then there are the things that just happen when you least expect them. Like going into anaphylactic shock at 4:30 in the morning.

That’s what happened. I woke up and had to pee. I stood on wobbly legs thinking I was out of it from being in a deep sleep. Problem was, I couldn’t walk without falling or using the walls as a guide, I was confused and disoriented, and I just couldn’t recognize that something was terribly wrong. I stumbled my way into the bathroom to pee and realized, wavering around the toilet and crashing into the cabinet and walls and making all kinds of noise, that I was going to pee all over the damn place, so I decided to sit. Things got really fuzzy at that point. I passed out and fell forward off the commode, slamming my head into the wall or maybe the corner of the vanity. It was a hard hit. Enough to wake my wife and have her come in to see what the commotion was all about. I could barely speak. “Gotta take a shit. Hit my head.” Mumble, mumble, mumble.

I don’t know how many times I fell before she woke up, but it was at least twice. And it was bad. She tried to get info out of me but I couldn’t think straight. The overwhelming urge to lay down and sleep swept over me like a riptide. “I need to sleep. I just want to sleep.” So I made my way into the living room and lay on the couch. I said, “I hit my head.” My wife’s eyes popped. “You what?!” She checked my head and said, “Oh. My. God. You’re going to the ER.” I couldn’t feel a thing. All I wanted was to allow the fog to sweep over me, to take me to the Land of Nod. But her reaction told me I was in deep shit and the place my consciousness was drifting off to was not a place I wanted to go. I felt the wound on my head.

It was a bloody flap of scalp.

She rushed me to the ER. The threat of passing out was strong. It took everything in me to remain conscious. There wasn’t a soul in the ER. It appeared abandoned. This was the best thing ever. I went through triage and was immediately wheeled back. My blood pressure was dangerously low. Two bags of fluids and eleven staples in my head later I was told I’d gone into anaphylactic shock. I’d had mysterious hives the day before which turned out to be an early symptom of some allergic reaction that led to anaphylaxis. As of writing this, I have no idea what triggered the hives. And that scares the shit out of me. I was on the third stage of anaphylactic shock, the fourth stage being organ failure and death. Had my wife not heard me crashing into the cabinet in the bathroom I would have gone back to sleep and who knows . . .

The Traveling Movie Show is LIVE!

That’s right, my new book of terror is out now. This one is a reprieve from the nastiness that was Disco Rice. It’s a tale fit for any fan of horror and I hope you give it a shot. Some early readers have said it’s been a nice palate cleanser after heavier, hardcore reads and that sounds about right. I think The Traveling Movie Show is fun with all the grindhouse grittiness that my work is known for.

It’s been said there’s no such thing as bad publicity, so when a man is murdered at the premiere of their debut film, Death Obsession, a small group of young filmmakers decide to make the best of a bad situation.

The Traveling Movie Show is a cross-country tour of the last drive-in theaters in America. A way to build buzz for a new horror film. But murder is close on their tails and fear of the tour being shut down has caused this misfit group to take fate into their own hands.

As they cover up each new death in each new town, they begin to turn on one another, wondering who the killer is. In the blistering heat of summer as they travel across the Midwest, they find out that some secrets weren’t meant to be kept. And sometimes killers are born of celluloid, dreams, and blood money.

My Appearance Schedule This Year

I have only a few appearances this year and they are as follows. I hope to see you at one of these events!

TBR Con Knoxville - Sep. 13 & 14

Books & Brews - Aug. 2, McCordsville, IN

Recent Reads from Hell

Alfred Hitchcock’s Anti-Social Register is one of many, many collections Dell published back in the day featuring stories selected by Hitchcock. I’ve read a few of these and they’re always top notch. Sometimes they’re more thriller/mystery, and other times more horror. This one was more in the mystery vein. Hitchcock always chose a great mix of tales, often with twist endings and always entertaining. There really wasn’t a dud in the book. And despite these stories having been originally published well over fifty years ago, they hold up and are a genuine treat to read.

The Book of the Damned was my first D. A. Fowler book. She also published under Debra Fowler.

After reading The Book of the Damned, a woman begins to slip into lifelike hallucinations depicting scenes from the book. As she goes insane and her hallucinatory actions affect the real world, she digs deep to find out that many others have been affected by said book. Now she has to figure out how to stop the madness before it consumes her.

There was a serious A Nightmare on Elm Street vibe to the guy from the fictitious Book of the Damned who was torturing those who had read it. By reading the book, you invite him into something worse than bad dreams ... waking nightmares!

I enjoyed the hell out of this book. Fowler's writing is sharp and sarcastic at times, which had me cracking up here and there. The plot was engaging and interesting, though the ending was lackluster. But I'm cool with that as long as the ride was good, and this one hit the spot. I'll be reading more Fowler--and regretting selling so many of her books I used to have!

Final Thoughts

I had the staples removed from my head yesterday, which was Friday, as I’m writing this part on Saturday morning. That goes to show you that I write this newsletter throughout the two weeks between each one. That’s the only way I can get it done. A little bit at a time. That the only way I get anything done writing wise. I just chip away at stories a little bit at a time. My wound is healing well. I have a big scab on my head, and the challenge is to not rip it off when I’m brushing my hair. Challenge accepted. I will see an allergist to try and find out what happened, what caused the hives that resulted in an anaphylactic response. But I’m guessing it was a freak occurrence, because that would be my luck. Then comes the bill . . . I’m only four hundred dollars away from paying off my 5K hospital bill from 2022 when I had Covid. This ER bill will likely hit my deductible again. I guess I’ll have another three years paying the minimum and hope I don’t have a medical emergency land me in the hospital to layer another bill on top of that.

Until next time, read horror and tell the world about it!