The Many Mutinies on the Bounty

/ JD Byrne / 1 Comment

Sometimes I fall down rabbit holes. This particular one I’m going to blame on Turner Classic Movies.

As I think I’ve said before, part of my work morning routine is to flip through the schedule on TCM to see if there’s anything worth recording that day. Months ago I found such a thing, the 1935 version of Mutiny on the Bounty, starring Charles Laughton and Clark Gable.

Having never seen it, or any other Bounty story, I recorded it. It sat on the TiVo long enough that TCM also showed the 1962 version (with Marlon Brando), so I recorded that as well.

When my wife saw both sitting there, she wondered aloud about if I intended to watch the 1984 version, Bounty, with Mel Gibson and Anthony Hopkins (and Daniel Day Lewis and Liam Neeson!).

So, one Saturday, we did the deep dive and watched all three back-to-back-to-back. And then I read Caroline Alexander’s The Bounty: The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty to actually get the history of the whole thing.

Watching different versions of the same story, the history of which is not as clear as you might think, made for some interesting comparisons.

But first, the basic history – in 1787 Bounty left England, under the command of William Bligh, for a journey to Tahiti. There, the crew would harvest breadfruit plants for transport to Jamaica, where it was hoped they could be replanted and used as a cheap food for the enslaved population. Sometime after Bounty left Tahiti one of Bligh’s underlings, Fletcher Christian, led a mutiny. Bligh and several loyal men were put adrift in a launch (and managed to make it back to civilization), while Christian and the others found their way to Pitcairn Island, where their descendants live to this day.

What’s particularly interesting about the history (from Alexander’s book, at least) is that there is a gaping hole in the record when it comes to Christian. Bligh, the men in the launch, and even some of the other mutineers returned to England where there were various inquiries into the mutiny, but Christian never did, dying (or being murdered) on Pitcairn. His precise motivation for the mutiny is unknown, therefore, and leaves a lot of room for fictional variation in the story.

For example, the portrayals of Bligh vary considerably between the three movies. As played by Laughton  in 1935, Bligh is a tough-love legal enforcer. The law of the sea is harsh and brutal, but it’s necessary to keep discipline on what is a very dangerous voyage. The 1962 Bligh, by contrast (played by Trevor Howard), appears to get off on the punishment he dishes out (which Christian calls him out for). He may use the legalish language that Laughton did, but it appears to be a cover for more personal motives. Hopkins in Bounty, on the other hand, dishes out much less discipline (particularly before the reach Tahiti), but seems much more paranoid about possible plots. Per Alexander’s book, Bounty was probably the closest to correct, as Bligh didn’t appear to be any firmer of a disciplinarian than the normal English captain of the time. That said, Bligh also suffered a rebellion (land mutiny?) when he was a territorial governor in Australia later in life, so clearly there was something about his leadership style that rubbed some people the wrong way.

The same is true for Christian, whose motives shift from telling to telling. Gable’s version, perhaps polished to match his matinee idol status, was driven to mutiny on behalf of the lowly sailors who Bligh abused. Notably, that version of Christian had served with Bligh before and had some idea that there might be trouble. It’s a pretty simple narrative. The 1962 version Brando played takes longer to get to the same place and, when he does so, simply snaps, rather than more coolly plots the mutiny. This Christian didn’t know Bligh before, so he’s perhaps more shocked by the brutality. Where Brando’s Christian really differs from Gable’s is the weight that command puts on him after the mutiny. Gibson’s version is motivated less by Bligh’s cruelty (since there’s less of it) than his affection for life on Tahiti. He appears, to quote Londo Molari, to have “gone native” and is willing to do whatever it takes to get back. This Christian didn’t just know Bligh prior to being on Bounty but was good friends with him, which again kind of pushes the cruelty angle to the side. Which of these is closest to truth, if any, is anybody’s guess.

The movies differ considerably in what happens after the mutiny, too. In the 1935 version, after Bligh makes it back to England, he is exonerated of anything to do with the mutiny, then heads off back to the South Pacific (true!) where he tracks down Christian on Tahiti and forces him to book it to Pitcairn (false!). Post-mutiny life for Christian is pretty swell, as least until Bligh shows up. In the 1962 version, Bligh is again acquitted, but with some comments from the judges afterwards that maybe he had it coming, anyway. There’s no return voyage. For Christian, as I said, command weighs heavily on him so much so that on Pitcairn he floats the idea of returning to England to tell their story. This prompts others to burn Bounty in the bay and Christian dies trying to save it (ending courtesy of Billy Wilder, rather than any historical basis). The 1984 version gives Bligh a full exoneration, while making Christian’s life after the mutiny even more miserable. The landing on Pitcairn comes off less of a triumph and more pathetic than anything else.

What none of the movies really do is dig into what happened in England once Bligh returned. There really was a court martial at which many of the mutineers (returned from Tahiti by other vessels) were convicted of mutiny, although many were acquitted (including a potential ancestor of mine!). Several were sentenced to hang, but two were pardoned. News coverage of the court martial was largely favorable to Bligh, but Alexander chronicles how that shifted over the years, thanks in part to Christian’s family and some of the other sailors involved. It’s safe to say that the popular conception of Bligh, closer to Laughton’s and Howard’s portrayals than to Hopkins’, is largely due to their out-of-court efforts.

Particularly interesting in the variations is that the 1935 and 1952 movies are both based on the same set of novels, so you’d think they’d be more similar. They’re both big screen spectacles and the 1952 version was no doubt made just to take advantage of color, but they are quite different in the people whose stories they are telling. I think I prefer the 1935 one. Laughton’s Bligh may be the farthest from the truth, but he’s pretty compelling and in his devotion to rules without empathy scarier to me than Howard’s psycho Bligh (remember, I’m a public defender by day). While I appreciate the ambiguity of the 1984 film, it doesn’t resonate quite as much (in spite of the Vangelis score).

Usually when a movie is made about a historical event the discourse breaks down into whether the movie got it “right” or how “wrong” it actually got things. The whole Bounty situation is a good example of how history isn’t so obvious in lots of situations and lends itself to different interpretations. Surely there’s another Bounty movie or TV series in the works that’ll provide an entirely different perspective, too.

I Guess We Need to Talk About AI

/ JD Byrne / 3 Comments

Over the last year or so it’s been harder and harder to avoid thinking about how artificial intelligence – “AI” – might impact the various aspects of my life. Not for nothing but there’s certainly a future where some variant of AI does most, if not all, of my lawyering job, so that’s been on my mind. More personally, how AI is going effect what people write and read, and the kind of music they make and listen to, is also something that is hard to keep off the brain. Now something’s popped up that really makes it impossible for me to avoid it.

Regular readers know that I’ve participated in National Novel Writing Month – NaNoWriMo – off and on for years. The idea is that you take the month of November, write about 1700 words a day, and by the end you have around 50,000 words, one threshold (at least) for a full-length novel. NaNoWriMo helped me develop the discipline to sit down and do that kind of long-form writing and several of my books started out as NaNoWriMo projects.

NaNoWriMo hasn’t had the best couple of years. Back in 2022 the organization paired up with an company called Inkitt that is, to put it mildly, a little suspicious. Then last year there were revelations that a child sex predator had been able to use the NaNoWriMo forums to seek out victims, leading to changes in how the site operated.

And now NaNoWriMo has waded into the debate on AI, doing so for apparently the most base of reasons – they have a new sponsor, ProWritingAid, which bills itself as an “AI-Powered Writing Assistant.” According to this (very positive) review, it’s more of an editing/feedback tool than the generative AI like ChatGPT we’ve come to think of as “AI,” so it doesn’t look like the kind of thing that is going to write a book for you, but help you do the actual work.

Which just makes NaNoWriMo’s recent declaration all the stranger. Last year and entry appeared in the site’s FAQ to answer the question “Am I allowed to use AI?” The answer makes perfect sense -there’s nothing to keep you from using AI during NaNoWriMo, but using something like ChatGPT “to write your entire novel would defeat the purpose of the challenge, though.” So far so good.

Then, more recently, another entry appeared asking “What is NaNoWriMo’s position on Artificial Intelligence (AI)?”. Initial squishiness about neither supporting nor condemning “any specific approach to writing,” gives way to a rejection of the “categorical” condemnation of AI, as such is classist, ablelist, and ignores “general access issues” (whatever that means).

Huh?

Depending on the definition of “AI” there certainly are technologies that could assist writers with various disabilities get their work written. Speech-to-text software involves some form of AI, broadly defined. Spell checkers are a friend to everyone. But is that really what they’re talking about? I doubt it, since those technologies have been around for years and nobody batted an eye. This can only be in reaction to thoughts on generative AI, right?

Rather than reinvent the wheel, I’ll quote some of Chuck Wendig’s post on this, with the charming title of “NaNoWriMo Shits the Bed on Artificial Intelligence”:

The privileged viewpoint is the viewpoint in favor of generative AI. The intrusion of generative artificial intelligence into art and writing suits one group and one group only: the fucking tech companies that invented this pernicious, insidious shit. They very much want you to relinquish your power in creating art and telling stories to them and their software, none of which are essential or even useful in the process of telling stories or making art but that they really, really want you to believe are essential. It’s a lie, a scam, a con. Generative AI empowers not the artist, not the writer, but the tech industry.

It goes on like that (it’s good rant) and I can’t say I disagree. At best, generative AI could be a benefit to consumers of content by providing them more of it at less cost, and perhaps tailored to their particular preferences. But for the creators there is absolutely nothing in generative AI for them. Being creative is about personal expression. Why have a machine write the story you want to tell? Tell it yourself!

That said, there are two things that have, up to this point, kept me from fully joining the anti-AI crusade.

First, there’s more than a whiff of moral panic about generative AI, in the sense that it reminds me of similar complaints about other artistic technological breakthroughs. Session musicians were up in arms that the Mellotron would put the out of business, but it turns out the a Mellotron doesn’t sound like live instruments played by human beings – it sounds (gloriously) like a Mellotron. Same with something like AutoTune, which may be used to “fix” a human vocalist, but has transformed more into an instrument/intentional effect with its own sound and characteristics. Will we look at generative AI that way in ten or twenty years? I’m not saying we will, but I’m not saying we won’t, either.

Second, most seem to agree that using generative AI is a cheat if used to “write” “your” book – how is it any different than hiring a ghost writer to do it? Honestly, putting to one side concerns about how AI engines are trained (a big aside, I’ll admit), isn’t hiring someone to write a book you put your name on just as bad as putting your name on something generated by a computer? Yes, it’s better in some spiritual sense ultimately for the content to be generated by a human rather than a computer, but it’s still not your story, is it?

Those are questions that will be worked out over the coming years. Right now, in 2024, however, it should be enough for an organization devoted to writing to say “generative AI is not welcome here,” while making room for the use of AI-adjacent technologies that help people tell their own stories. That NaNoWriMo can’t make that fairly simple declaration is, for me, enough to no longer be a participant, at least in any official way.

Thank you, NaNoWriMo, for how you helped jump start my life as a writer. I’ve got it from here.

What I’ve Been Up To

/ JD Byrne / Leave a comment

Hey gang! It’s been a while. I was going to get back to blogging a few weeks ago, as my Don’t Call It a Book Tour wound down, but Frontier’s internet service had other plans. So I pushed things back until after Labor Day. It’s supposed be fall now, right?

That said, the book tour still has a couple of stops left on it. As I mentioned earlier, I’ll be back at the West Virginia Book Festival on October 19. Before that, though, I’ll be part of a night of Spooky Storytelling at Cicada Books & Coffee in Huntington on September 19.

I’ll bust out some of my scarier stuff, along with other local authors Stephen Bias,  Joel Gun, A.B. Hooser and Caitlyn Pace, along with podcaster Mark Muncy. It’s open mic, too, so bring your best spooky tale! More details here.

In between all the book tour stuff, I’ve managed to finally finish a complete draft of The Fall, my NaNoWriMo project from last year. This one was tough, having a stunted first attempt, a change of direction for the second attempt that got scrapped halfway through, and questions about how the damned thing was going to end. It’s in pretty rough shape, but I have something I can work on and make better.

All of which is a long way of saying that regular programming is resuming here at the blog (until it doesn’t, of course!).

Don’t Call It a Book Tour (Redux)

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Just thought I’d check in while I’m still out promoting my award-winning new book, The Triplets of Tennerton.

I’m about halfway through my planned events. I had a really great time at Plot Twist Books in South Charleston and Cicada Books & Coffee in Huntington, doing some signings and reading. I got to add another event, too, and appear as the featured author at the monthly Writers Can Read gathering in Huntington.

That last event is particularly neat, as after the feature author reads, anyone can get up and read from works in progress or works long finished. We had memoir, poetry, and other fiction read that night. You can keep up to date on their events here.

In addition to events at the Lewisburg Literary Festival and West Virginia Book Festival, I also have another neat event to announce.

On August 17 at 6pm I’ll be appearing along with a couple of other local authors at Bake My Day which, as the name suggests, is a bakery! In addition to readings and signings, there will also be music and a wine & macaron tasting event. Truly, something for everyone.

More details here.

Regular programming will resume in early August, after the event in Lewisburg (and my wife’s birthday!).

Don’t Call It a Book Tour!

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Now that the award winning The Triplets of Tennerton is out and about in the world, I’m happy to announce that I’ll be doing some in-person events later this year where I’ll be selling and signing and other stuff, too!

June 29, 2024 @ 11am-2pm: Plot Twist Books – South Charleston, WV

The first stop is in my hometown, so it’s particularly special. I grew up in South Charleston and my father still lives there (only a couple of blocks away, in fact), so it’s a nice place to kick things off. I’ll be there signing and selling books.

July 11, 2024 @ 6:30pm: Cicada Books & Coffee – Huntington, WV

Cicada is a cool little spot on the west side of Huntington. They’ve got a great selection of books (including lots from local authors) as well as a couple of neat nooks in the store for meetings or chats. The coffee is good, too, from what I’ve heard (I’m not a connoisseur). In addition to signing books, I’ll be doing some readings at this event, too.

Ticketing information for this event can be found here.

August 2-3: Lewisburg Literary Festival – Lewisburg, WV

It’s been a while since I’ve been able to participate in this event, so I’m really excited to be back. Lewisburg is a cool little town generally speaking, but it’s even cooler when it’s filled with readers and writers and lovers of words. I’ll be in the Festival Bookstore. Much more going on that weekend, so check out their website.

October 19: West Virginia Book Festival – Charleston, WV

Last (?) but certainly not least, I’ll be back at the West Virginia Book Festival after missing out last year. As usual, there’s a great roster of authors and other presenters during the day, as well as the famous library used book sale.

Come on out, say hi, and buy some books!

The Triplets of Tennerton – Out Now!

/ JD Byrne / 2 Comments

Today’s the day! The Triplets of Tennerton, the long-awaited sequel to Moore Hollow, is here!

You can get paperback and Kindle versions at Amazon and other eBook formats as well (eBook version only 99 cents for a limited time). If you’re in my neck of the woods and want to shop local, the paperback (along with the revised Moore Hollow, featuring new cover art) will be available at Plot Twist Books in South Charleston and Cicada Books & Coffee in Huntington.

Tell your friends! Tell your enemies, too, if they happen to be readers! If you like Triplets please write a review at your venue of choice. Even if you don’t like it, write one anyway, I won’t mind.

Welcome back to the life of Ben Potter and the weirdness that dwells in this part of the world. Welcome to Paranormal Appalachia.

The Triplets of Tennerton – Second Excerpt

/ JD Byrne / 1 Comment

In this excerpt, Ben has been retained by Grace to work on the case of Sid Grimaldi. First up, that means visiting Sid in the local jail and getting his story, which goes beyond “I didn’t do it.”

“Sid,” Ben said, mustering his softest tone, “I can’t imagine what that was like, the pain and the horror of that night. But I know that for years you’ve said that you don’t think your girls died in that fire. How could that be?”

Sid sat up and wiped his eyes again, like he was resetting himself, moving into a different mode of conversation. “I can’t explain it, I just know it in my bones.”

“You understand that from my vantage point, someone who came into this not knowing anything about you, it just doesn’t make sense.”

“But you have to believe me!” Sid reached out and grabbed Ben’s hands.

Ben decided to lie a little. “I want to. I really do. And I’m perfectly willing to listen to any odd theory you might have. Trust me, I’ve seen some things you wouldn’t believe.”

Sid released him and sat back. “Like what?”

“I can’t really say.”

Sid scowled. “You’re bullshitting me.”

“No, no, that’s not it,” Ben said, trying to sound convincing. “It’s just that . . . well, you know how anything you tell Grace or me or the other investigator who’s working on your case is privileged? You could tell me right now that you set that fire knowing full well your girls would die, and I would have to keep that secret.”

Sid gave him a hard look. “You made a promise. To keep a secret?”

Ben nodded. “I know you don’t know me and you’ve got no reason to trust me, but I do keep my word. I’ve promised the people involved never to talk about it, but, yes, I’ve seen something you’d never believe. Still, that doesn’t mean I’ll believe anything anybody tells me. What makes you think your girls are alive?”

Sid slumped back in his chair. “I told you, man, I don’t know. It’s just something in my gut. You got kids, man?”

“No,” Ben said, continuing to hold back as much personal information as he could.

“Then you don’t know. You know things about your kids that you can’t explain.”

“If that’s true,” Ben said, deciding to press a bit, “how come Teresa doesn’t believe you?”

It took a moment for Sid to come up with an answer. “You’ll have to ask her. I mean, we all have our own truths. Hers was that she had to get on with her life, for Toby and herself. Mine is that I can’t get away from what happened that night. It’s why I’m here, ain’t it?”

Ben was willing to concede the point. He was also ready to conclude that Sid’s belief about his triplets wasn’t much more than wishful thinking, so he decided to pivot away for a moment. “You mentioned the stuff about the shed and the ladder. Is there anything else you remember that was odd? Not just about that night, but any time after the triplets were born?”

Sid closed his eyes, looking deep in thought for a long while. “There was this one thing,” he said finally. “It was while everybody was still in the hospital. I’d gone to get some things for Theresa. When I came back, there was this man in her room, talking to her.”

“A man?” Ben asked. “Was it a doctor or nurse, some kind of technician?”

“I thought he was, at first. From behind, he had the same kind of build as Teresa’s doc. He was in a suit, but I figured he had just stopped in on his way in or out of the hospital.”

“He wasn’t a doctor?”

Sid shook his head. “He was asking Teresa all these questions, but they were the kind the doctor would already know, right? When the girls were born, the specific time. The date. He stopped when I asked him who he was.”

Ben leaned in just a bit. This was the first out-of-place thing Sid had said that resonated with him. “What did he say?”

“Just that he heard about us in the news and he wanted to wish us good fortune,” Sid said. “I remember that now. Who does that?”

All Ben could think of was how, in the modern world of social media, everything about those girls would have been online, and people far and wide would be doing just that. Still, it was odd for someone back then to do it in person. “Wait, did you say he read about you in the news?”

Sid nodded. “Didn’t say where, specifically, but we were in the news a little. Triplets, identical ones no less, are kind of rare.”

Ben marked that down as one more thing to follow up on. “You remember anything else about this man? What he looked like? I don’t suppose he gave you a name.”

“I asked his name, but he wouldn’t give it. He weren’t rude about it or nothing, just, what’s the word,” Sid paused for a moment. “Slippery. Guy struck me like he lied for a living.”

Ben fought back the urge to make a joke about lawyers. Sid’s fate was in the hands of one, of course.

“Other than that, the only thing I remember is that the suit he was wearing was black. Black coat, black tie, white shirt. It looked kind of old fashioned, yet very crisp.”

“Huh,” Ben said.

The Triplets of Tennerton – coming May 29

Pre-order now for Kindle and other eBook formats.

The Triplets of Tennerton – The Inspiration

/ JD Byrne / 1 Comment

One of the things that made me think sequels to Moore Hollow might work is that West Virginia has a pretty rich collection of folklore, cryptids, and other oddities to keep Ben and crew busy for many books to come. Leave it to me, then, to take inspiration for The Triplets of Tennerton not from Mothman or the Flatwoods Monster (although he kind of makes an appearance), but from a house fire that happened in 1945.

George Sodder and his wife Jennie lived in Fayetteville along with their nine (!) children. On the night of December 24, 1945, the house burned down. Both parents and four of the children made it out alive. Five other children, however, were presumed dead – presumed because their bodies have never been found. But for that last detail the whole tragedy might have vanished into the ether of memory and history, but the circumstances of the fire and the lack of remains have made it a unsolved mystery of long standing.

The primary thing that stuck with me from a storytelling standpoint is that George, Jennie, and the rest of the family continued to believe that the missing children actually survived the fire. The lack of remains was part of that belief, as there had been a similar fire in the region shortly before where remains of those who didn’t get out were found. More than that, there were reported sightings of the kids in Charleston not too long after. Over the years, there were more reports, from as far away as Missouri and Texas, but none of them ever panned out. George even tracked down a man alleged to be one of his missing sons, but the man denied it.

The circumstances of the fire were suspicious, too. The family received an odd phone call about 12:30 in the morning. A half-hour later, Jennie awoke when she heard something hit the roof with a bang. A half hour later they smelled smoke. Once the fire was underway, George tried to climb up to the second floor to rescue the children trapped there, but a ladder they routinely used around the property was misplaced. George couldn’t start either of his trucks to move next to the house to use them to climb. There’s much more, but that gives you a sense of it.

And that’s before you get to a possible motive that involves the Sicilian mob and George’s vocal hatred of Benito Mussolini (George was born in Sardinia and came to the United States at age 13).

As so often happens with real-life inspirations for fiction, reality (such as we know of it) is really just a jumping off point. What grabbed me about the Sodder story was the lack of remains at the scene of the fire and the family’s unwavering belief that those children had survived. The Triplets of Tennerton  is not the story of the Sodder family. Sid Grimaldi isn’t George Sodder and what happened to Sid’s children is vastly different from what most likely happened to George’s. Nor was Sid’s family united in their belief, as the Sodders were. This is definitely “inspired by” territory, not “based on.”

If you want to know more about the mystery of the Sodder family, I recommend this three part podcast from Unexplained Mysteries. There’s also a good write up here from Smithsonian Magazine.

The Triplets of Tennerton – coming May 29

Pre-order now for Kindle and other eBook formats.

The Triplets of Tennerton – First Excerpt

/ JD Byrne / 1 Comment

Ben’s business model, such as it is, for his website is to do in West Virginia what he’d been doing in London for the “loony rags” – reporting on sightings of odd things, trying to get to the bottom of them. In this excerpt he’s returned to the home of a older, drug addicted, woman named Isabel who thinks UFOs are landing in the woods nearby. What he finds, well, isn’t quite that.

He grabbed a flashlight from the car. “You wait here,” he said, fairly sure Isabel didn’t need him to tell her what not to do. Flashlight on, Ben leaped across the creek and started walking toward the light show.

Ben was worried that he might get lost, lose the track of the creek as he headed toward the event, so he kept his eyes down, looking at the path he illuminated with his flashlight. It wasn’t a straight shot to the clearing, if that’s where he was headed. The sound was angry but hypnotic, on the one hand warning him to stay away, while on the other drawing him in. It was almost as if someone was mixing the heaviest of Metallica or Tool with the clang of Kraftwerk’s “Metal on Metal.”

Eventually, he was close enough that the lights were so bright that he could turn off the flashlight. The path had taken a turn so that the light show was directly ahead of him, in the clearing Isabel had described. Ben crouched down, moving slowly toward the scene. In among the din, he started hearing things that sounded familiar, almost like a squealing of distorted guitars and . . . vocals?

Ben could see that the trail ended at the top of a slight rise with a fairly steep grade. There was a thick branch blocking the way, so he crouched down behind it, leaning on it to keep from falling over. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing, much less hearing.

There was a bonfire. Not a very big one, but enough to add an orange glow to the light show that was made up of red, white, and blue stage lights. The ground to one side of the bonfire was covered with some boards to turn it into a small makeshift stage. On stage there were four people dressed in what Ben assumed were costumes and masks, some with horns. In front of them, a small crowd of a dozen or so other people danced and writhed, most with their own masks on. One of the people on stage held a microphone and bellowed into it, croaking out those Cookie Monster–style vocals that some are so fond of.

This wasn’t a UFO. This was heavy metal.

Ben chuckled and got out his phone and recorded about thirty seconds of video. This would be a good story for the site, and the video should be enough proof to convince Isabel that she didn’t have to worry about visits from MIB anytime soon.

He was ready to head back, so he instinctually pushed on the branch, like it was the bar of a guardrail. It wasn’t, and it snapped when he put his weight on it, sending Ben sprawling down the side of the hill. He did his best to make a run of it with a sense of control, but he tripped over a root and went tumbling. His phone flew from his hand, and he let loose a stream of curses at the top of his voice until he hit the ground, hard.

His fall did not go unnoticed.

Most of the music stopped. There was a grating metallic sound that kept going, some kind of loop on a computer that hadn’t taken note of him.

One of the dancers ran over to him. At closer range, Ben could see that they were wearing a devil mask. “Y’all right, man?” said a woman with a twangy drawl.

“I think I’ll be all right,” he said, pushing himself to his knees. His left side hurt worse than when he’d broken a rib in an ill-fated attempt to impress Tara by playing rugby. His right hand was scraped and bloodied. Nothing else seemed to be wrong, but he knew he’d be sore in the morning.

As he got to his feet, the lead singer of the band arrived with a few others in tow. “Who are you that would disturb this ritual?” He was trying to sound tough and threatening, but it wasn’t quite working. The costume, a second-rate Gwar knockoff, wasn’t helping.

“Ritual?” Ben asked, steadying himself.

“We gather here, far from prying eyes, to praise our dark master,” the singer said, gesturing toward the fire. “Hail Satan!”

The others gathered around called out as well.

The Triplets of Tennerton – coming May 29