Perhaps her mind is creating companionship. Perhaps she is haunted. It would seem that I am haunted, as well.

EXHIBIT C.

David McAfee: This is the third installment in my series of short stories dealing with a very talkative serial killer. The other two can be found in my two short story collections: The Lake and 17 Other Stories, and Devil Music and 18 Other Stories. Like the previous entries in the series, I hope Exhibit C is brutal, creepy, and disturbingly entertaining to those who read it.

THE CANOE.

Joel Arnold: The Canoe started with a vision I had of a canoe that keeps appearing mysteriously at the dock of a cabin in the deep north woods of Minnesota no matter how many times the cabin's owner releases it back into the current of the river. I decided to have the characters be a father and son of Cambodian decent; the father living with memories of the terrors of Pol Pot's regime, while the son just wants to fit into American society. I peer-tutored Cambodian kids when I was in high school at a time when these kids still remembered living under Pol Pot's rule, and ever since then I have been fascinated by their stories of survival in such harsh and nightmarish conditions. But as their children who didn't experience that nightmare first-hand grow up in American society, those experiences are only stories their parents and grandparents may or may not tell them. And being kids, they often just want to fit in with their American peers. I wanted to write about this dynamic between father and son; how the father wants to protect his son, while the son just wants to find his own group of peers. While the canoe in the story at first serves as a way for the father and son to bond, it later becomes something that keeps the father and son apart.

On a side-note, the canoe has the name *Farbanti' written on it, which-although not explained in the story-is in reference to a Norse G.o.d who ferried the dead to the underworld.

DESTINATION.

Benjamin X. Wretlind: Destination was a concept piece. I wanted to write something in the science fiction genre, but being a horror writer at the time, I didn't know what to do. So, like most people, I borrowed an idea from something I had written a long, long time ago: THE FERRYMAN, a short story about Charon, the old guy who ferries souls across the River Styx but hates his job. That piece turned into DESTINATION nearly a decade and a half later.

THE GHASTLY BATH.

Dawn McCullough-White: I was looking at some of the photos of damage that had been done to cemeteries in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina-the flooding, the broken tombs-and then this idea came to me about a person caught up in a flash flood that tears through a cemetery, and how gruesome and horrifying that might be. And that was when I knew, this was my story, I wanted to put some poor sap into that situation. I also thought this would give me the chance to continue writing about Jules, an a.s.sa.s.sin and favorite character in my trilogy (the Trilogy of Shadows). Just explore a little bit more about his life prior to my books and I'd also have the chance to torture him a bit more...

WORLDWIDE EVENT.

David Dalglish: Origins for Worldwide Event (originally t.i.tled Too Brief A Touch until mocking by other various authors in this collection prompted a change) are fairly simple. Shouldn't be too surprising that religion plays a part. It involved the question, if G.o.d existed, why didn't he simply announce himself to the world, removing all possible doubt? Ignoring arguments involving faith and belief being relevant should such a thing be a undisputable fact, my initial response was very simple: it just wouldn't matter. G.o.d could appear in the clouds, wave his hands, and go "Hi guys!" and there'd still be people out there claiming aliens, tainted water, group hallucinations, government conspiracies, etc. He'd have to appear again. And again. And again, like some goofy timeclock. "It's New Year's everybody, wave hi to G.o.d!"

But what if something did happen? What if, for just a brief moment, the whole world was made aware of something bigger than ourselves?

That idea, combined with one of my favorite Ray Bradbury short stories of all time, The Last Night of the World, became what was eventually t.i.tled Worldwide Event. It's a pretty dark story, but then again, I don't see how to make it end joyfully. If I ended it midway through, then it'd have been rainbows and sunshine without difficulty. But when exploring the possibility that the greatest miracle of our time would still not be enough to change anything...well...I consider that just a little dark. Just a little depressing. Never my intent, but rarely does my intent ever really matter when I'm writing a story. The story's the boss, after all. I'm just along for the ride.

CHORUS.

Robert J. Duperre: This tale was directly inspired by the fantastic ill.u.s.tration of Jesse's that graces the back cover of this book. When I first saw it, I immediately pictured a story of sadness and terror that also had a sort of beauty to it, a hope in the future that the horrible beings the image presented had no right to feel. When J.L. Bryan asked me to contribute a story to the re-release of his own short story collection, I decided enough was enough and finally put what was in my head on paper. Abigail's depressing story and eventual salvation is what came out. I'm quite happy with it.

THE ONE THAT MATTERS.

Robert J. Duperre: At the beginning of last year, David Dalglish contacted me, wondering if I could possibly write up a story for him to include in A Land of Ash, a compilation dealing with the eruption of the Yellowstone Caldera and its aftermath.

Of any story I've written, this one was the hardest, both in execution and idea. I struggled for weeks to just come up with a plot. Every story I began ended less than a thousand words in, as it was plainly obvious that the story just wasn't working.

Finally, I took some of the conspiracies my father-in-law told me, imagined them coming from the mouth of an old man who'd prepared for circ.u.mstances much like this, and placed a young girl in his care. In the original version of the story, an important event in Guido's life, the event that made him shut himself off from society, is presented in between each break as a flashback. When I finished writing it, although I thought it was decent, my wife said it needed a lot of work and I agreed. I was ready to tell Dave forget it, that I couldn't get him anything in time, but he was stalwart. "Just send it to me," he said. "I'll see if I can find out what's making it seem stinky."

The next day Dave sent the story back to me, chopped almost in half. All of Guido's weighty backstory was eliminated, and what I read was a tightly knit, well-written tale of isolation and despair. In other words, this story wouldn't have been half as good as it is without Dave, and for that he deserves tons of thanks. It's one of the best pieces of fiction that has my name attached to it, it is the inspiration for the cover of this anthology, and has a feel and pace that I try to mimic each time I sit at my desk and plug away.

All in all, I feel it's the perfect choice to close out this collection.

So that's it, folks. You've come to the end of our little journey through depression and loneliness. Please, if you liked this collection (or even if you hated it), feel free to stop by Amazon or whatever outlet you picked it up at and leave a review. Your opinion matters to us, as it should for every small press publisher. And also, make sure to visit http://theriftonline.com for updates on current and future projects from T.R.O. Publishing.

Look out for The Gate 3: 13 Stories of Monsters Among Us, slated to be released between November of 2012 and January of 2013. Trust me, it's going to be another good'un.

Robert Duperre.

January 21st, 2012.

end.