Release date: September 25, 2020
Subgenre: Horror
About Midnight Horror Show:
It’s end of October 1985 and the crumbling river town of Dubois, Iowa is
shocked by the gruesome murder of one of the pillars of the community.
Detective David Carlson has no motive, no evidence, and only one lead:
the macabre local legend of “Boris Orlof,” a late night horror movie host who burned to death during a stage performance at the drive-in on Halloween night twenty years ago and the teenage loner obsessed with keeping his memory alive.
The body count is rising and the darkness that hangs over the town grows by the hour. Time is running out as Carlson desperately chases shadows into a nightmare world of living horrors.
On Halloween the drive-in re-opens at midnight for a show no one will ever forget.
Proudly brought to you by Crystal Lake Publishing—Tales from The Darkest Depths.
The body count is rising and the darkness that hangs over the town grows by the hour. Time is running out as Carlson desperately chases shadows into a nightmare world of living horrors.
On Halloween the drive-in re-opens at midnight for a show no one will ever forget.
Proudly brought to you by Crystal Lake Publishing—Tales from The Darkest Depths.
Excerpt:
Tuesday, October 22, 1985
A searing white flash of
sound burned my dream away. In an instant, nothing remained but shadows and
dread and shame. I’d swatted at my clock radio out of instinct, but the noise
didn’t stop. As my brain struggled to catch up, I crawled over to the edge of
the bed and read 4:21 a.m. in radium painted numbers. The dark of my room felt
darker than it should, and there was a smell in the air I didn’t like. I picked
up the telephone receiver from the edge of the nightstand.
“Dave,”
a familiar voice on the other end said gently. “We need you at 19 Halverson as
soon as you can.”
I
looked at the clock again, and rubbed at the gunk that had settled in the
corners of my eyes. “Okay, Chief.”
“Leave
your radio off… It’s a bad one, Dave.”
The
line went dead and I hung up the receiver. I stumbled over to the shower in the
dark and dunked my head under running water for a minute and then ran a comb
through my hair and dug around for a clean looking shirt and pair of pants. I
eased my shoulder rig on, holstered my .38, and then finished getting dressed before
I headed out.
I
carried my shoes with me down the stairs and put them on when I made it to the
porch. My landlady lived on the ground floor of the house and I didn’t want to
wake her if I could help it. I slid into my car, an unmarked ’78 Caprice, and
reached for the radio to call in before I remembered the chief's instructions.
With
a little coaxing, the Caprice started and I eased it into the street. The car
had been new when I was assigned as the head of the Investigative Unit, a
storied and illustrious law enforcement team that, to date, had been a one man
operation since the chief created it that same year. Wisps of fog snaked off
the pavement as I made my way towards Black Hawk Road. The sun wouldn’t be up
for a couple of hours.
The Amoco
station sign flickered to life as I drove past, casting long shadows across the
parking lot of the Sirloin Stockade. The streets were deserted; shift change at
the IFI meat processing plant wouldn’t be for another two hours. Around then,
you’d see a few more cars headed to the plant, but not as many driving away.
After a night of turning livestock into groceries, most of those guys stopped
off at the Rail Spike Tap for an hour or two before heading home. Place is a
dump, but it’s cheap and right by the plant. My first week in town, I went in
there early to serve a bench warrant to the owner. First thing I saw was one
fella face down on the floor and another guy, covered in blood up to his
armpits, standing over him. I drew my weapon immediately and told him to put
his hands on his head. He could barely do it without falling over. The rest of
the bar’s early morning patrons had a good laugh, and that’s when I noticed
none of them had bothered to wash up after clocking out either. “Welcome to
Dubois,” they said.
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About Ben Lathrop:
Ben Lathrop has written and taught on the history of cinema with a focus
on the horror genre and cult audience behavior. He is a native
Iowan, former television horror host and present librarian. He
lives with his family in Cincinnati, Ohio.
