Psi-Wars: Classified Cases of Psychic Phenomena

By Betty Rocksteady, Joshua Viola and Stephen Graham Jones

From Atlantis to the Third Reich and beyond, these thirteen original tales of cerebral science fiction and horror explore the evils that abound when humanity wields extraordinary minds as weapons, whether to wage war or prevent it. Steeped in psychic savagery, telekinetic combat, and extrasensory espionage, PSI-WARS imagines corrupt governments

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hex Publishers LLC
• Release date: May 12, 2020
• ISBN: 9781733917780

Book preview

PRAISE FOR PSI-WARS

Jagged, fresh, cutting, and very, very dark. PSI-WARS will make you think, and then wish you hadn’t.

—D.J. Butler, author of WITCHY EYE

A collection of chillingly compelling stories you really don't want to come true.

—Wil McCarthy, author of THE COLLAPSIUM

An engaging blend of stories whose cinematic qualities are so strong I’d love to see an entire festival devoted to them.

—Steve Rasnic Tem, award-winning author of FIGURES UNSEEN, UBO, and THE NIGHT DOCTOR & OTHER TALES

Exceptional SF that enlivens, fascinates, and unnerves.

—KIRKUS REVIEWS, starred review

Keith Ferrell’s passion for storytelling was unrivaled. He was happy to share advice as long as there was promise of friendship. Keith was part of the Hex family from the beginning and will be sorely missed. Find his work and read, read, read. But, more importantly—as Keith would say—write, write, write.

In Loving Memory:

Keith Ferrell, 1953-2020

Since childhood, I’ve carried a little World War II tale in my head that an eccentric great uncle shared with me over a half century ago. When you’re young and impressionable, you listen in awe to the yarns of old men. When the specific yarn features a giant feather appearing above the lake in front of your home on the brink of the Second World War, blood pouring from the calamus and spreading across the water—well, let’s just say I was hooked.

Maturity would later give me greater understanding of my uncle’s story. You see, my father fought in World War II. Learning more about his time in the Navy increased my interest in family lore. I found what we all find: moments of sadness, moments of courage and moments of joy. Above all, I discovered many great characters.

I decided to sew some of those discoveries together using the needle and thread of my twisted imagination to create a short story I titled, The Visions of Perry Godwin. Perry derives from my grandmother’s maiden name, Perrego. The setting is the home in northeastern Pennsylvania where my mother grew up with her two siblings. It is also where I spent my summers until I moved to Colorado with my parents at the age of seventeen.

Back in those days, we owned a sixteen-foot Crestliner with a Johnson outboard motor that I navigated around the lake years before I was old enough to drive a car. We also had a dock where fishing was a way of life, summer or winter, it didn’t matter. There was a drive-in theater less than a quarter mile away in one direction at a place called Sandy Beach, and a thriving (but now defunct) amusement park called Hanson’s half a mile in the other. Less entertaining but somehow just as alluring, a cemetery occupied by many a dead relative existed on the other side of our lawn.

All in all, it was quite the magical place for a kid with a vivid imagination to come of age.

Don’t get me wrong, Colorado’s a magical place, too. I came into my own here, especially as a storyteller. I’m involved in the local writing community in ways my younger self never could have imagined. The Denver area has a thriving artistic community open to supporting writers of all ages. I’m fortunate to count so many authors, both established and up-and-coming, as my friends. You’ll find some of their work right here in the pages of this anthology.

You’re also going to find The Visions of Perry Godwin.

The finished draft had lived on my hard drive for a couple of years. I felt good about the story (shout out to Warren Hammond, Mario Acevedo and Josh Viola—more on him in a second—for guidance and storytelling advice), but there never seemed to be a magazine or anthology it suited. I wanted my little war narrative to be out in the world but wasn’t sure how to make that happen. Enter my friend Josh Viola.

Josh is both a gifted writer and the owner of Hex Publishers—something we co-founded on Halloween 2014, which has put out a number of critically acclaimed anthologies and novels. Josh and I were driving back from working the Hex booth at the 2019 Denver Independent Comics & Art Expo (DiNK) when I finally worked up the courage to ask if he’d be interested in publishing a book of war stories.

What kind of war stories? he asked.

I don’t know. How about wars from the past and present?

Josh seemed hesitant. He’d mentioned more than a few times his disinterest in older war films. And I say films because that’s how Josh thinks. Everything, reality itself, is cinematic to him. He processes it all like a movie. That’s why Hex is known for its heavy use of multimedia content—from story illustrations and flipbook animations to expensive movie-like book trailers, PlayStation themes and soundtracks.

Then Josh asked, What about future wars? Wars that embrace elements of science fiction and supernatural horror?

Definitely, I said.

That got him hooked. It was like I’d channeled my great uncle and Josh had become my younger self, his imagination running wild with the possibilities an old man laid out before him.

I kept talking and expanding on the idea. By the time we got back to his house, he was nearly on board. In hindsight, he probably just wanted me to shut up.

I’d shown Josh The Visions of Perry Godwin before, but he’d forgotten many of the details. He did recall liking the paranormal aspects of the story and said that if the hypothetical anthology focused on tales featuring psychic abilities and how they could be applied to war, he’d do it. "Carrie meets Saving Private Ryan," he said with a big grin. Since my story already had that extrasensory component—and this would be a Hex Publishers anthology, after all—I couldn’t say no.

And so, Psi-Wars: Classified Cases of Psychic Phenomena was born. Josh agreed to be the editor. I took on the role of producer. An incredible artist, AJ Nazzaro, created the amazing front cover illustration. Multi-award-winning artist Aaron Lovett handled the back cover illustration, the phenomenal story art and the mind-blowing—pun intended—flipbook animation.

Books are a complicated art form and require so much investment from so many. I can’t offer enough thanks to Josh, the contributing authors, copyeditors, artists and formatters for creating what has turned out to be a very special endeavor. What began as an attempt to sell a short war story about a tormented young man from Pennsylvania with a unique power has become a remarkable anthology thanks to the creative collaborators from Colorado and beyond. All of your efforts are greatly appreciated.

The result of this hard work and investment now rests in your hands. So, kick back and lose yourself in these powerful stories of war. But beware the psi.

Dean Wyant

Longmont, Colorado, 2020

Imagine being able to bend metal with a look or toss a foe through the air with a simple glance. How amazing would it be to read anyone’s thoughts on a whim? To break the laws of physics with the blink of an eye? Judging from the enduring popularity of novels like John Farris’s The Fury, movies such as David Cronenberg’s Scanners, and the pyrokinetic characters found in the works of Stephen King, audiences are fascinated by the mind’s extrasensory potential for creating entertaining havoc.

But what would happen if the government had access to abilities like those found in popular fiction? Could we trust the military with clairvoyant powers of the mind? How would psychic wars be waged?

If answers to these questions sound like a great mission statement for a short story anthology, then congratulations: you’ve read my mind.

You might even be psychic.

Let’s test that theory. I’m thinking of a number between one and twenty.

What’s your guess?

Thirteen.

Wow, you are psychic!

Thirteen happens to be the number of stories in this anthology. In this sense, thirteen is only unlucky because every tale is so good, you’ll wish it was fourteen…or fifteen…or…

Well, you don’t have to have extraordinary mental powers to get my point.

Psi-Wars offers one of the most expansive and imaginative explorations of psychic abilities ever set down in print. Let me tell you about a few that, well, come to mind.

First, in And When You Tear Us Apart, We Stitch Ourselves Back Together, Betty Rocksteady explores the psychic connection shared by two sisters and how attempts to stifle their evolving abilities lead to unexpected results.

Sean Eads and Joshua Viola’s The Jarheads introduces us to a crack test team of new super soldiers, equipped with telekinesis, pyrokinesis, and advanced precognition. But are they soldiers…or pawns?

Angie Hodapp’s Cradle to Grave brings us to a World War I hospital on the frontlines of France, where a new nurse uses her powers of extrasensory perception to comfort and care for injured soldiers. But there are those who would put her gift to a more sinister purpose.

In To Jump is to Fall by Stephen Graham Jones, we free-fall with a telepathic skydiver aimed toward a mysterious mission. Beware if you suffer from a fear of heights!

In Mario Acevedo’s "Protectors of Atlantis," a determined guardian uses his unusual talents to defend the fabled city.

The Calabrian, by Warren Hammond, brings us to the shores of England and Europe during World War II as a young singer is held prisoner by a Nazi mystic skilled in water hydromancy. There must be something in those Mediterranean seas!

Under the Lotus by Darin Bradley introduces us to a couple who are experimenting with a new consciousness-altering device. Intended for self-improvement, they soon find darker underpinnings.

In Mathew Kressel’s Very Surely Do I Not Dream, a young woman accompanies her father into a future Russia, where her actions can change the face of an ongoing war but may require sacrifices beyond her imagination.

Thirteen never felt so lucky! Glad you guessed right, aren’t you?

So, turn the page and discover worlds where the mind becomes the ultimate weapon on the frontlines of battle and entertaining havoc awaits.

Istand between my brother and my mum, our hands linked in an unbreakable chain. Shoes on damp sand, we face the roiling waves of the Irish Sea. My hair whips my forehead as stout gusts blitz the beach.

For hours now, we’ve waited as others are rounded up and forced to join us. I think the entire town must be here by now. All the innkeepers and fishmongers, the schoolteachers and railway workers. Though this is Thursday, Mrs. Cox, who works at my school, wears her Sunday finest while a packed suitcase sits beside her. Mr. Chapman, who mans Blackpool’s favorite fish and chip shop, is uncharacteristically without his apron and has two pairs of spectacles atop his head. The beach is more crowded than I’ve ever seen it, even at the peak of the summer season. All are quiet and tense, and I see enough lips quivering to know how hard they are trying to maintain their pride and dignity. All are standing except for old Miss Hargreaves, who sits on an opened handkerchief.

The sky is dark with clouds that spit pellet-like rain, which stings my cheeks and makes my woolen sweater stink with damp. I am cold, but this town has been my home for all my thirteen years, and I know how late-October feels. What I don’t know is if I can trust my mum’s repeated insistence that we will survive this. That everything will be okay. She said it for the first time six months ago when my father was shot down and killed over the Channel. She said it again when London fell last week. Again when the defenses near Liverpool and Manchester collapsed two days later. And she said it one last time this morning when we woke to the house-shaking rumble of Panzers rolling into Blackpool.

I squeeze her hand tight, trying to wring it for every drop of optimism I can, but I see my town, all the people I’ve known since I was a wee babe, and I see how their shoulders slump in defeat. I look at my brother James, who is four years my senior, and I try once again to remember the freckled prankster who never failed to make me smile. Now he is something else, a manikin whose stare has been emptied of the mischief and joy I held so dear.

Then I watch the soldiers. Though they are strangers in my town, they strut the Blackpool Promenade like they own it. They own every last bit of my town now. The seafront. The pier. The tower that once made Eiffel jealous. The arcades. The oyster shops. The theatres.

They own it all, just like the rest of Europe, and I hate them.

His boots come up to his knees, his cap stands tall, and he preens along the seafront promenade like a peacock. Who can sing? I hear him shout, though most around me are unable to hear. Somebody hands the Nazi officer a megaphone, and his voice now easily dominates the crash of waves and the squawk of gulls. Come, little songbirds! If you can sing, come to ze front and let me hear you!

I aim my gaze at the ground as a woman emerges from the crowd and starts Home, Sweet Home. He dismisses her with a wave. I vant to hear ze children singing, not old cows.

James elbows me. Simon, go sing for him.

I shake my head.

You can sing better than any arse in Lancashire, and you know it. Tell him, Mum.

I look up at my mother, my eyes pleading, my shoulders shaking. They’ll take me away.

James is right, she says, her eyes turning glassy. It will be the labor camps for us. A performer’s life has to be better. They’ll feed you right. Give you proper lodging. Maybe even let you go to school.

Prompted by their parents, many children are moving to the front now. I stay where I am. No, I say, my voice cracking on the lone syllable.

James has my face in his hands. Please, Simon, you must sing. You must.

Tears run from my eyes and spill onto James’ fingers. I want to stay with you.

I hear one of the children sing. Her pitch is off, and she’s waved aside.

Don’t be shy! shouts the officer through his megaphone. Little ones come sing for me, and maybe I’ll let you sing for the Calabrian

I go pale at that name. The Calabrian. The Fuhrer’s counsellor.

See? says James. If you sing, they’ll take you to the Calabrian. They’ll take you to a theatre in Rome or Berlin. You’ll be safe.

Another child sings and is shooed away. I vant ze voice of an angel! calls the Nazi officer.

My mother drops to her knees, and I pull away from James so I can fall into her embrace.

Don’t make me go, I say, though I know she’s already made up her mind.

James is talking in my ear. You hear that, Simon? That lad couldn’t carry a tune if it came with a handle.

My mother kisses the cross she wears around her neck, then she kisses my forehead before turning my shoulders around until I face the promenade. We will see you in a year, she says. Maybe less if the Americans get here sooner. They’re winning the Atlantic, Simon. A year at most, and we’ll be together again. It will be like when your cousin Cynthia went to school in Stockholm. You remember that, don’t you? She had a wonderful time.

I don’t move. I stay where I am.

James smiles one of his old smiles, a smile I thought was permanently lost. Look at that Nazi wanker, he says. He thinks we’re nothing but a bunch of tossers.

For