The Pit and the Basket (teaser only)

By L. G. Merrick
Illustrated by Steve Morris

When Warren Ledlow was four, his father returned from Afghanistan. It became one of Warren’s earliest memories, vivid forever. Daddy showed up at the front door in uniform. Smiled. Said nothing. Walked straight through the house to the back yard. Stripped off his uniform, piled it on the kettle grill, doused it in lighter fluid — and set it ablaze. The crowd in the yard went silent, uneasy. His welcome-home party. Warren’s dad, in skivvies, smiled grimly.

Intrigued? Well, good news and bad.

Bad news first: The rest of this story can’t appear at Cannibal Cyclops as originally scheduled. Sorry!

Now the good news: It can’t appear here because it has been accepted for publication in the horror anthology Satan Rides Your Daughter.

Is Satan Rides Your Daughter a great title, or what? It’s a collection of tales “in loving homage to Dennis Wheatley, William Peter Blatty, Clive Barker, and every other documenter of hellish realms and their nefarious citizens.” Fun? Fun!

You probably know Blatty (The Exorcist) and Barker (Books of Blood). Wheatley is less widely remembered. He wrote The Devil Rides Out, perhaps the bestselling horror novel published between Dracula (1897) and The Exorcist (1973). It skizzed people out at the time (1934) because it seemed a pinch too authentic in its descriptions of occult rituals. As if maybe this Wheatley was up to something. So that is interesting. (Unfortunately the book is a little clunky and melodramatic by 2021 standards; there’s a 1968 movie version from Hammer that I hear is good.)

While you ponder all of that, why not check out the Steve Morris illustrations that were meant to accompany the “Basket” story here:

The art tells its own story. But of course it raises questions too. And those you might find answered — if you pick up a copy of. . . Satan Rides Your Daughter.

(That’s just fun to say!)