8/21/26
Asleep at 10:30pm and awake again at 2:00am. I don’t know why, but I do know that falling back asleep again is going to be an exercise in futility, so here we are.
A series of tornadoes on both sides of the river tore through the area last night, accompanying one hell of a thunderstorm. We didn’t get an alert until after they had passed (thanks, DOGE). My son’s former high school had its roof ripped off and extensive damage to the exterior HVAC system. There were fifty kids inside at the time, for band and sports pratice. No one was hurt. In the new housing development across the street, one person was hurt by flying glass. I can’t imagine this won’t impact the start of the new school year when classes go back into session on August 26.
Meanwhile, across the river in Columbia, a state of emergency and curfew has been declared. The block that Vortex Books & Comics used to occupy got hammered especially hard, with two buildings and a bunch of power lines downed, as well as extensive damage up and down the street and side streets. Columbia has been particularly hard hit in recent years, beginning with a series of still unsolved arsons targeting local businesses, including the biggest antique market, as well as flooding, and increasing homelessness and crime, and the local government and law enforcement seemingly doing everything they can to make things unpleasant for local businesses, so I imagine this will be another big setback.
(All photos in the above galleries copyright 2026 by Brian Keene)
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A reminder that I have two different books currently available for preorder:
Signed, limited edition hardcovers of FALLING ANGELS: THE LABYRINTH Book 4 can be preordered here.
Trade paperback and eBooks of BENEATH THE LOST LEVEL can be preordered here.
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Women In Horror Year: Day 108
The Wind Caller by P.D. Cacek
Listen to the leaves rustling. Hear the wind building. These could be the first signs Gideon Berlander has found you. They could be the last sounds you hear.
Gideon hasn’t been the same since that terrifying night in the cave, the night he changed forever - the night he became a wind caller. But the power to call upon and control the unimaginable force of the wind in all its fury has warped him, twisted his mind, and unleashed a virtually unstoppable monster.
Those who oppose Gideon are destroyed...horribly. No one can escape the wind. And no one - not even Gideon - knows what nightmarish secrets wait in its swirling grasp.
P.D. (Trish to her friends) Cacek sold her first short story when she was 39 and ¾ years old. This is notable because she’d vowed to stop writing and submitting if she wasn’t published by the time she turned 40. The Wind Caller was (if I remember correctly) her first novel for Leisure Books, and is notable for two reasons: 1) the idea of the wind itself being used as a supernatural menace and 2) its depiction of First Nations culture. At the time, Native American representation in Horror fiction was solely lacking, relegated almost always to tired tropes like “the Native American burial ground” and “the Native American curse” and the occasional cultural monster from folklore like the wendigo or skinwalker. The Wind Caller was an important bridge novel in transcending that, and getting us to where we are today. As Nick Kaufmann observed in a 2004 review:
“What I especially liked about it, though, was its use of Native Americana without resorting to the standard ‘white family threatened by ancient Indian curse’ trope. In fact, the majority of the characters were American Indians, which is something I rarely see in horror fiction (or most kinds of fiction, for that matter). “
Long out of print, and with the Leisure Books mass-market paperback commanding prices from $20 to $80 on the secondary market (depending on condition), Crossroad Press has resurrected this important novel again in eBook and audiobook.
