Loathsome, Dark and Deep

Civil War veteran Henry Barlow hasn't carried a gun since his wife's brutal murder, a memory he drowns nightly with bourbon. Turning his back on his past, Barlow takes a job with a lumber company on the Pacific Coast. But the lumber has stopped flowing from the Lewis River logging camp in the Washington Territory, and Barlow's employer, H & P Lumber and Pulp, sends him to investigate with a small band of armed mercenaries. As they travel upriver, Barlow must confront phantoms of his past, the ever-present ghost of his dead wife, alcoholism, and the dark hearts of men perverted by power.

Loathsome, Dark and Deep asks important questions about the nature of what it is to be human and just how far a man is willing to go in his lust for wealth.

What they are saying about Aaron Polson’s

“…one of the gems of this issue and made for a strong finish. The imagery is dark, but unique…”

- Maggie Jamison (Tangent Online) on “Empty Vessels” from Morpheus Tales VIII

“...keeps the reader engulfed in the story with vivid description, characters to care about, and the sharpest prose in the collection.”

- Nathan Goldman (Tangent Online) on “Dancing Lessons” from Dark Glass

“…captures the personality of a small town in the grip of mounting terror quite well.”

- Mark Sieber (Horror Drive-in) on “A Plague from the Mud” from Monstrous