This will be the last edition in which the original set of columns remains from the Volume II’s first launch. Beginning next week, expect these changes:
The Vampires will have a bit of a shift in characterizations;
Calamity on Cinema will come to reside exclusively on Letterboxd;
Classic Horror is moving to Thursdays, to replace the Calamity on Cinema column; and
House will come to reside right here on the Backstage Pass!
We’re all very excited about these changes, as they will streamline operations in some ways (moving Cinema out), and create space for new stories to take shape right here, Backstage (moving House in). We hope you come to love the changes!
In the meantime, we still have our usual columns ready and waiting for your perusal. Edgar is preparing for something—though it’s unclear what—and Isabelle is just rolling with it; you can catch up with the two vampires in this week’s A Vampire’s Vengeance. Curiosity rarely ever ends well in horror stories, and this week’s classic horror story does not disappoint, in The Shadow on the Moor. We ride with Ti West through his rambunctious X trilogy in Calamity on Cinema. And of course, Bus Driver rolls in with a new installment!
Come along, my highly esteemed guests →
It is rather funny how writing has often less to do with the act of writing and more to do with planning, thinking, shaping, editing, and a host of other things. For example, I mentioned in the prior edition—and here as well—of the changing of the temperaments and characters of our vampires in A Vampire’s Vengeance. With so many stories in progress—eleven to date!—it is often easier to just start writing the damn thing and fill in the details later than to take notes and sit on the damn thing and then never come back around to it.
Thus, A Vampire’s Vengeance was started and is now at a point where I’m recognizing a number of changes can be made to make the progression and the characters far more interesting. Also, there could be a lot more blood. Granted, at the current state of the story, there’s really no place for it just yet, but lots of blood was planned for later in the narrative, and even in its ethereal existence, it isn’t enough. So the story’s going to get a lot more bloody, and it starts by making the vampires a lot more hungry.
Since we left off writing House on Threads, there has not been any progress in the book. Which is fine. It’s at the point where a few decisions have to be made about the direction it will head, and this lull has been perfect to chew on those decisions. With the restructuring of our messy backstage, we’ll be returning to the story beginning in the next edtion, though we’ll just start from the beginning.
In other backstage news, a utility plugin was submitted to the Obsidian community which will bring the network plugin in progress just a little closer to being completed. Once that’s done, we should, hopefully, see stories being scaffolded with precision, and at lightning speed.
Okay, perhaps not lightning speed. Writing takes time, and I don’t see a stupid plugin changing that. Operations, however, will be streamlined and those may see a significant boost in completion rates, which will be nice.
Edgar’s up to something. But what? Is this all part of the investigation into the disappearance of his coven? Catch up with the latest installment of A Vampire’s Vengeance before the vampires … change …
There isn’t much left to say about this week’s classic horror pulp fiction that hasn’t been said in the editorial, the stories sub-header, and the prologue, so we’ll just say “have fun!” Dive into The Shadow on the Moor, and keep your head about you:
This week in Calamity on Cinema, we take a casual stroll through Ti West’s X trilogy. This will be the last installment of Calamity on Cinema, here, Backstage. Calamity on Cinema, however, will continue on Letterboxd. Come follow along! New lists will continue to drop every Thursday.
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The gift of time is, for many, an incredible gift indeed. Unless, of course, it is not a gift at all and arrives with a cost in excess of what one may be willing to pay …A tale from the Odds ‘n’ Endings Boutique.
Are you all caught up and ready to dive into the latest from the bus driver? When last we were on the bus, it was beginning to roll through Victorville after a rather explosive greeting, and we were left hauling away from … what? Whatever it is, it must be absolutely horrendous to have brought out the terrifying reactions of the passengers. You can catch up with Part XI here. Shall we see how this all transpires? Will the monster catch up and take the bus down? Or will the bus driver manage to keep the bus out of its grasp?
"WE GOTTA GET THE FUCK OUTTA HERE."
It was the man on the front rail gun. The passengers in the cabin were frozen, staring at the monstrosity gaining on the bus. The bus driver snapped his attention back to the road as the bus slammed into an infected, the loader bucket's edge slicing it in half at the waist. The bus driver was thoughtful for a moment. Shit, I didn't know this could do that. He then reached for the intercom.
"Keep the road clear!" The bus slammed into two more human infected as the bus driver replace the mic. Three dismembered torsos bounced against each other in the loader bucket. Gunfire began sweeping over the lane, picking off stragglers as they fell from the walls and tried to run toward the bus.
The woman on the rear rail gun was doing her best to keep the faster infected from reaching the bus, while hitting the bloated monster with sprays of lead whenever the opportunity presented itself. The bus driver glanced at the monitor of the rear camera as often as he dared, while navigating the lane where piles of corpses were growing on either side. His mind struggled to comprehend what he was looking at.
Maybe this thing was human once, but it was human no longer. It was humanoid in shape, with two arms and two legs, though its hands and feet were more like claws than human appendages; it pursued them on all fours, causing its ill-proportioned belly to swing wildly below it. It's elbows and knees stuck out at odd angles as it chased the bus. Muscles rippled and pulsed across its body, visible through the shredded and decaying skin. And for as large as its body was--its joints scraped against the walls on either side of the highway--it's head was larger, far too large for its body mass, with muscles and teeth bared to the elements. Oh god those teeth; they were the stuff of nightmares.
Terror gripped the bus driver as he worked to keep the bus steady. They charged through the funnel with audible gunfire and explosions on all sides, and the rail guns up top spun nonstop. And the infected kept fucking coming. What had the woman on the radio said? They were cleaning up? This was fucking cleaning up after a swarm?
A loud roar broke over his thoughts and he snapped his attention back to the monitor. Blood poured from out of the monster's left eye. The bus driver watched as the thing tore into an abandoned car and ripped off the roof, bending it to sit over the wounded side of its face, the continue to pursue them. Its giant claws slammed into the wreckage on either side, causing it to stumble into the walls as the angles of the compacted vehicles pushed back against it.
Oh so that's why the junk is set up that way. The bus driver had only a moment's consideration before the radio crackled to life. It was the woman from earlier:
"Having fun in there?" Shouts and laughs were being thrown around in the background. The bus driver could only imagine what kind of people these were to revel in the chaos they were dealing with. "You're almost to the end. Listen, we got a surprise for that fucker behind you. When you shoot out of the funnel, do not stop. Ya hear me? Over."
"Loud and clear, over." The bus driver shook his head. The fuck? He had zero intentions of ever stopping while that thing was chasing them. Hell, if he didn't have to stop at the trading post, or to refuel, he'd haul this damn bus all the way to Vegas without stopping. There was nothing else that could make him stop this bus, not after coming to see first hand an evolved infected.
The exit was close. The bus driver could see the walls on peel away from the highway. On either side were towers and pillboxes and barriers, in similar position as where they entered the funnel. But that was it. Whatever they had in store for the fucking monster behind them, the bus driver couldn't see it.
Is this what we have to look forward to if the bus driver survives? More of these monstrosities? Also, we’re very much in agreement with the bus driver about the clean up. If this is clean up, what does a swarm look like? Maybe it’s best if we don’t find out, right? And what about this surprise for the monster chasing them? There’s only one wat to find out! Come back next week!
I don’t know about you, but I am invested in Bus Driver! What’s going to happen next? You know what’s hilarious about this, is I know what’s going to happen next. Still, it is quite exciting to see it written and published and be a concrete part of the story rather than some ideas, thoughts, and notes about it.
The same can be said, of course, for A Vampire’s Vengeance and House.
Anywho, we do hope you enjoyed your time perusing the Calamity from backstage! Go invite your friends. We’ll see you next week!
Cordially,
Mad Alex
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