Welcome to Holy Week! I hope you're having a good spring so far. Let us help make things a little warmer for you on this Monday. It is time for a new Story Sheets! We haven't had one in a bit. Strap in, because this one is a ride.
It is hard to believe I've been published and publishing for so long and yet I have yet to get tired of it. Writing stories is simply one of the few things that make me feel whole when I engage in the process of doing so, and even now I am grateful to still have new ideas pumping out of my brain to share with readers years after starting. It's been a good run so far, and it doesn't seem likely to stop anytime soon. I am certainly thankful for that.
Trying new things, and old things in new ways, remains as fun and engaging now as it was when I began. This includes everything from blog posts to stories. Writing doesn't just encompass one thing or style, it is the entire enchilada.
It goes without saying at this point that there will be story spoilers in this post. There usually are. I can't quite talk about today's story itself otherwise. So please, go read "City Eater" in
Sidearm & Sorcery Volume Two (and please leave a review!) before engaging with the subject of today. Even Bryce Beattie, the editor of said anthology, stated it is the best thing I've ever written. That is quite the high praise! Go see what he could possibly be referring to for yourself! There are even 16 other great stories to immerse yourself in, as well.
I should also mention some spoilers of my book
Y Signal is also going to follow. It is kind of unavoidable, in this case. I can't really talk around it if I want to discuss this subject.
Y Signal has a lot to do with "City Eater."
Let us now get into today's subject.
When I first wrote
Y Signal, it was to try and capture that rapidly disappearing memory of time erased by an aged population engaging in revisionism of its failed past that did not lead to a glorious utopic future. '90s nostalgia, at this point, is a weapon from those at the top of the social ladder lying to you about what it was like using clichés and fashion from an era that was nothing like it actually was.
I've written about this before. Material such as Jonah Hill's Mid-90s movie also presents a different world than many of us alive then actually lived in. If you want to see an accurate (if not still goofy and exaggerated) view of what post-Gen X, pre-Millennial childhood was, I suggest watching the movie Camp Nowhere. There is a reason none of the people trying to sell you the '90s today look anything like that movie. They do not want you to remember how different it really was.
But I digress. This piece isn't really about Y Signal, but the creation of that story is why "City Eater" exists in the first place.
The original goal of Y Signal was to preserve that cohort of kids, that eye in the cultural storm, when everything appeared to be going right. It was to counteract the lies attempting to destroy something special to a certain group of people. There is truth, myth, and falsehood, to this time I portrayed, but it is better to be portrayed at all as opposed to the dishonest way those in control of our poisonous pop culture frames it today. Everything else from Y Signal rolled out of the desire for honesty. Hopefully you think the same.
I mention Y Signal, because it wasn't an idea that just sprang fully formed when I wrote that piece on the blog a couple of years ago. This story has been an idea rattling around in my brain since I was in high school, back when no one else seemed to notice the things being changed and lost in real time around us. No one cared at the time that things were falling away, but now they miss them. Many of those lost in nostalgic fog today were the same ones who desperately wanted to escape those times back when they were modernity. The problem is that we never did understand what it was being lost then, and we're trying to preserve the wrong things, even now.
Now let us get into how Y Signal relates to today's topic. As said before, spoilers for both are to follow. You have been warned more than once! Proceed at your own discretion.
I won't beat around the bush in case it wasn't obvious enough from reading it: George from Y Signal is the main character in "City Eater." I wouldn't have used the same name for the character otherwise, trust me. There is a very good reason for him being the main character, though it ties in with everything that both Y Signal and "City Eater" are really about.
For those who read Y Signal, you more or less know what happened to Ray and Andrew, since they are the main focus of the book, but Danny and George's future after the story's events are a bit up in the air. That was intentional in the frame of the book, but the characters themselves I wanted to cover again. I will eventually bring Danny back, but his future is a bit more complicated to discuss than the other three were. George's future is pretty much encapsulated in the events of "City Eater" especially with the ending reaffirming who he really is. In a sense, this is a sequel to Y Signal, though it doesn't need to be seen that way to engage in what happens.
If you are worried about this all being continuity heavy, don't. I always make sure every story I write is standalone enough that anyone can get it on their own without needing full context. Besides, just about everything I write solely under my own name is related somehow, even distantly. Connections exist, but they are not mandatory to understand anything. You can engage in the stories how you prefer to engage in them.
In this case, I wanted a story reflecting the difference between the world someone like George grew up in contrasted to the one that exists today. It wasn't quite the world promised us back in the day, remember. If you think back to George's fate in Y Signal, he didn't exactly leave the story on the best terms with his friends or his hometown. He didn't lie when he said he would never go back to Burroughsvale, though he didn't really accept any of what happened either. Someone who grew up when kids like that were around would never have fully absorbed it. They were not spiritually prepared for such a thing. George clearly compartmentalized the events and threw it to the back of his mind as a bad childhood game gone wrong. He had to. That isn't too uncommon with my more nihilist generation. I know plenty of people who still do that today. The past was bad, even what you half-remember, and is best left ignored.
But ignoring truth has consequences, and not always in obvious ways. Just as it did in Y Signal, so too does it happen in "City Eater" as well.
George was the closest to a materialist of the four boys, and the events of Y Signal (of which he was only directly involved for a little bit, mind) only reinforced his negative views of the supernatural. So it would then make sense why after years of ignoring the real world just outside of his perception that he should be faced with dealing with it again. Now it has invaded and taken over all aspects of his very life. But it isn't just his own life he has to worry about . . .
One obvious change from those old days is that our modern age is much more supernaturally focused than the 1990s ever were. The weirdness, the magic thinking, the esoteric spell enchantments you see from crazed mental patients and celebrities in the news, and in institutions like CERN, have been a huge mindset shift since those old simpler days. In essence, the world George could ignore back when he was a kid is now being thrust into the forefront everyday. It can no longer be avoided. Even someone like him will eventually have to face the truth.
And that is what "City Eater" is about.
The titular City Eater itself is a concept I thought up a long time ago, and tried using once in a story a friend and I were planning to co-write back in college. That project didn't go anywhere, and was scrapped at the time, but the "monster" (if that's what you call it) stuck around in my head for years afterwards.
I also wanted to explore the spiritual evils of the city. You see a lot of stories about small towns in media about how the small-minded bigots are insane and scary and will summon demons to keep out the city slickers. You also see plenty of stories about the living purgatory of suburbia about how conformity will destroy your unique identity with sameness. Basically, only urbanites have it well off among the lot. Everyone else in the world is crazy.
That is where I asked the question: But what about cities?
Why don't we scratch under the surface a little. What sort of monsters dwell in cities, and would you even notice any if you came across them? The City Eater exists in the cracks, the screaming cacophony, and the dirtiness, of an urban landscape of people who see most others outside themselves as objects and obstacles to get ahead. You are as alone in a crowd as you are in rows of similar houses or out in the cornfields. Probably more so, in some ways. I don't intend to say this is the obvious or end state of modern city life, just to portray that its horrors can extend beyond getting mugged or shot by a gang banger. There is more hiding under the noise.
This hard urban modernity is reflected in the relationship between George and his family. His son, especially, dealing with the ubiquitous nature of the modern internet shows how strange things are now compared to where we were even a quarter of a century ago. Who else, after all, would listen to an online avatar of a
schizo pink rabbit VTuber who regularly discusses conspiracies and weird internet lore? Yes, that is who that animated character that George's son is listening to at the start and end of the story is based on. The point is that this is a much different world than the one of even a few decades ago, and it's one we still don't really understand ourselves. This is where the City Eater is able to slide in and gnaw on our insecurities and spiritual blindness for nourishment itself. We don't see anywhere near as much as we think we do.
To be frank, while there is much good and bad to found in the way things are now (and neither do I think the past was perfect, as Y Signal will show you) I do feel as if we are on the cusp of something truly horrific that we, like George, have trained ourselves to not be ready for. Much of "City Eater" comes from that feeling of dread and uncertainty permeating everything today. It is that idea that we are going to miss the obvious because our mental frames are still couched in bad ideas and dated thought processes that cannot keep up with the way things are now. We still insist that Progress is real, it is the only thing that spurs us on, even when everyone alive today will outright admit that it does not. This isn't sustainable.
There is a storm brewing out there, and eventually we aren't going to keep pretending it's not, especially when the downpour breaches the open windows we have left ajar. Whatever is going to end up happening sooner than later will be far worse than we can even imagine. Here's hoping that future doesn't come to pass.
Of course, none of this matters if the story isn't entertaining, and I would be remise not to mention that it is influenced by the likes of classic "siege" stories like Assault on Precinct 13 or Rio Bravo. In fact, it is an extension of those, as by this point the threat actually is entirely supernatural without any ambiguity like said former film hinted at. This follows the decay of modernism I mentioned above to its natural endpoint, showing just how far we have come, or haven't, since the old west. It is now a siege on reality itself.
This time the siege is centered on an entire family in a modern city that might not be quite what they thought it was. In this case, I tried to explore what relationships might be in such a situation, and how technology could be used against them instead of the obvious positive it is always shown as being. It's actually quite a lot easier to show than one might think. Tech hasn't really changed as much as we believe it is, in fact it can leave us far more vulnerable to attack, as you can see for yourself in the story. Though I would think the tremendous growth of AI photos and video should show just how fake the internet actually is, and is about to increase even more. Soon enough, reality itself won't be so easy to pick up from the digital bits on your screen.
At the end of the day, however, I wanted to write a modern Weird Tales story. I should clarify: I wanted to write a story that the Weird Tales magazine of the classic era would run if it were around today. This doesn't mean a modern subversive story with 1930s trappings, or an upside down "I hate normies! Weird people rule!" postmodern take on the situation, either. The only difference is the time period portrayed, but otherwise I think it nails that old school weird feel in a modern setting. The weird is still with us, after all. It isn't going anywhere just because we ignore it. Though I suppose you could also say that this is also evident in the story itself.
As a consequence, "City Eater" is one of the longest short stories I've had published by someone else. I can't quite get that Weird Tales vibe without getting somewhere in the same ballpark of length they did, even if doesn't reach some of the longer lengths the magazine was known for in their actual serials. Thankfully the editor, Mr. Beattie himself, was perfectly fine with that. Now you can engage in the entire tale for yourself without nary a content trim to be found.
It was a blast to write, and I am glad its reception has been as warm as it has been. I hope you had a good time with Sidearm & Sorcery Volume Two. If so, the writers and editor would very much appreciate you leaving a review. They help more than you might think!
Thank you for taking your time to not only read the story but spend some time reading my explanation for its existence here on Wasteland & Sky. I wouldn't be able to do anything at all like this if it weren't for those readers like you who keep reading what I put out. It truly is a blessing being able to do this in the first place.
Stay tuned for more stories in the future. This isn't close to the last one I have scribbled down, it is just the latest to find its way out there for your enjoyment. I guarantee there are many more on the way and in the pipeline right now.
Remember to keep your eyes open. You never know what might be watching in the dark, or waiting in the morning light for the night to pass. Anything is possible!
