A New Evil

Note: This story was originally published in Black Cat Weekly #61 in October of 2022

"Tamara Richardson is a late twenty-first century homicide detective in the twilight of her career. Having been stripped of most of their authority by the Police Reduction Act of 2050,  Detective Richardson was supposed to be one of the bright stars who would rejuvenate the failing institution of law enforcement. She needed to be great. She turned out to be merely adequate. 

Now, Richardson counts the days until retirement, hoping to avoid a controversy or catastrophe that might jeopardize her pension. When an old friend asks her to investigate the missing tenant families of his rooming house, she finds a darkness lurking in the wretched slums of her city beyond anything she's encountered before. If she is very, very lucky, this new evil may ruin her career but spare her sanity."

Back in 2020, I started working on a science fiction novel about two detectives trying to solve a murder in the year 2068. The idea was to paint a world where the police only respond to calls for service instead of trying to stop crime before people get hurt. No traffic tickets, no search warrants, no patrol. Halfway through the book, it got too depressing to finish.

However... that next summer, I read a few stories in Occult Detective Magazine that I really liked, and I decided to try my hand at a bit of horror. Not slasher fiction or suspense, but good old fashion Lovecraftian cosmic horror. I've always liked a bit of spooky, and one of the members of my critique group was very encouraging. Since I was trying something new, I took one of my detectives from the sci-fi story, changed the names to protect the innocent, and put her in harm's way. I liked the outcome so much that I started a new novel with her facing off against the eldritch horrors of the south in the year 2080.

This was the start of the Kinston Collective stories, BTW. Tamara (a name that I love) became Akayla (a name I love more) when the story expanded into a series. I'll recon that to be her undercover alias one day!