James Hesemeyer
The Slumville Bastard
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Speculative
The world no longer bleeds. Set deep within the future of an anarchial America, the country has collapsed as man embraces a sudden and infinite reign of immortality. Waking one day to discover death no longer exists, humanity slowly descends into a pit of depravity and darkness upon realizing mankind is no longer afflicted by death. Crime rises. Nations disintegrate. Societies collapses. And people turn the long and wicked knife upon one another as the meaning behind their lives slowly evaporates, replaced by an eerie and sinister sensation to engage in nihilistic activities to attempt to find meaning in an otherwise empty world. Witness to it all is an unidentifiable protagonist simply known as Marty, a battered and cynical narrator struggling to remain sane in a world defined by lunacy and madness. Trekking across the country while avoiding the homicidal violence of the world around him, Marty eventually settles in a dystopian city defined by hedonism and indulgence and controlled by the insidious urges of a ruler obsessed with denigrating the symbols of the past. It is within the city where Marty observes the final confrontation of what it means to be human. Delusional and melancholic, happy and sad, a lunatic and a hopeless romantic, Marty descends within the darkness of the new age of humanity bearing the fire of good within him as he tries to salvage whatever light remains in the world. The Slumville Bastard is a story of good and evil, destruction and restoration, while providing an interpretation of what it truly means to be evil. Twisted and wicked, violent, and depraved, the story asks what the meaning of death truly is, and the impact it would have on life should it be removed. 
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All the Bloody Devils Dance Upon Our Mountains
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Horror
First began the fires that clogged the sky. Afterwards came the drums beating their hellish tune. Now from the smoke comes the devil and his horde to ravage the sweet innocence that exists beneath the bloody mountains. In the valley of Eden the sweet folks sleep believing their rules and their traditions might forever keep them safe. Yet, from the mountains comes death. From the mountains comes darkness. From the mountains comes the abominations that might forever extinguish the light from the world. 
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The Savage Detective
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Western
The Savage Detective takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where nuclear destruction has rendered much of the world uninhabitable. The world has been destroyed, nature eradicated, music unplayable, the Earth dotted with psychopaths and cannibals and bandits attempting to massacre the small bands of survivors looking to live peacefully. In the wake of complete nuclear annihilation, a fascist and omnipresent power has arisen from the darkness known as the Great Many Men. Based around the idea of sameness and simplicity, this governing body hunts the remaining pockets of survivors strewn throughout the country to eradicate all who stand against them. The story follows retired general Martin Toro, who once led the final resistance against the Great Many Men decades before. Drunk and filled with regret, he spends his days in an alcoholic stupor obsessed with reliving the violence and trauma of his past. Having surrendered his responsibility of protector, he languishes in exile, waiting to be taken by death and stewing over his failures to stop such rampant violence from consuming the world. His isolation is disturbed by an arrival of an old friend, Angie Hauser, who once served with him in the last rebellion against the Great Many Men. Now old and withered, Angie arrives with news of a device which bears the memories of the past within its shell. On this flash drive are pictures and music and speeches and images and voices and sounds from the past, a past that has almost been completely forgotten by the survivors who hopelessly long for a better world. While hesitant to join Angie on her quest to retrieve said device, eventually Toro is stirred to action, and joins with her on a trek through the remnants of the country as he searches for the flash drive. Along the way they are pursued by the Great Many Men, as well as roving death squads comprised of lunatics and sociopaths who seek nothing save for the thrill of killing. They come across and adopt two young children named Baxter McCreedy and Lenore Lucille after discovering them abandoned and in hiding. Battering violently through the skeletal skyscrapers and burned down suburbs, the quartet eventually meet with a man named Dane Deets, an old, grizzled veteran who provides them with a moment of relief in a scrap heap of civilization at odds with a group of religious extremists who wish to own a strip of land where miracles are said to happen. Here, a final, climactic battle takes place as the forces of evil and good mix in ground and in air to decide the future of the world. |
The Savage Detective deals with themes of masculine trauma and loss, as well as examining how coping mechanisms and violence between men are passed down through generational bonds between father and son. Toro serves as an outlet through which these themes are examined and emphasized, built-up through the lens of deconstructing the mythos of masculine authority and the positivity of masculine violence. The narrative emphasizes the importance of memory and its strange capacity to distort and manipulate the world.
