All The Sinners Bleed

Adult Chiller 

     S. A. Cosby's All The Sinners Bleed opens with a Joseph Conrad quote:  "The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are capable of every wickedness."  If that's the thesis statement it's most gruesomely supported in the body of the novel."

     The novel is set in Charon County, Virginia, a name interconnected with the River Styx and the rest of the underworld.  And historically the county had lived down to its name:

1805:  the burning 🔥 of an Indigenous village and the shooting of any residents who managed to escape the fire;

1853:  cannibalism 

1901:  an outbreak of maleria 

1935:  poisoned picnic pie decimating the ranks of the United Daughters of the Confederacy 

1957:  a family murder-suicide 

1968:  tent revival baptismal drownings 

Some residents now believe that the evil 😈 was in the past and should be forgotten and moved beyond.  But not everyone.

     "But if you had asked Sheriff Titus Crown, he would have said that anyone who believed that was a fool or a liar.  Or both.  And if you had an occasion to speak with him after the long October, he would have told you that maybe the foundation of Charon was rotten and fetid and full of corruption, not only corruption of the flesh but of the soul.  That maybe the rocks the South was built upon were shifting and splitting like the stone Moses split with his staff.  But instead of water, only blood and ichor would come pouring forth."

     "'Titus...there's an active shooter at the high school.  Titus, I'm getting a hundred calls a minute here.  I think...I...think...Titus, my nephew's there,' Cam said.  He sounded strange.  Titus realized he was crying."

     It's the call probably just about every law enforcement officer dreads these days.  And the scene Titus and his deputies arrive at is predictably chaos.  Teachers and students are pouring out of the building.  A passing student tells Titus that a man shot Mr. Spearman, a teacher.

     Then the shooter appears carrying a leather wolf 🐺 mask and a .30-30 and spouting what seems to be pseudo Biblical nonsense. 

     "He made them call out for God.  Then he'd tell them he was Malak al-Mawt, the Destroyer.  But that wasn't true either.  He was just a sick motherfucker, just like Mr. Spearman."

     Titus knows the shooter, Latrell.  He'd gone to school with and played football with his dad, Calvin.  He'd had to arrest Latrell for minor law breaking.  Calvin had admitted that Latrell was "messed up."  He's desperate for the incident to end without another death.  He does his best to convince Latrell to put his gun down and let himself be taken into custody.  But when Latrell starts running toward the law enforcement officers two deputies start shooting.

     Titus finds Mr. Spearman in his classroom with his brains blown out.  There are no other victims.

     At this point if you believe that it's a simple case of a popular teacher being killed by a mentally ill person, possibly also strung out on drugs, you're totally justified.  But Titus isn't totally sure Latrell's ramblings were total nonsense.  Latrell's almost last words were, "Check his phone."  When he does what he finds on it and on two hidden thumb drives is horrific.  Latrell, Spearman, and an unknown third man had been molesting, torturing, and killing children.  Obviously Latrell and Spearman are beyond any kind of justice ⚖️ of the Earthly kind.  But the third man must be captured before he commits more horrific acts.  And the families of the victims deserve the chance to get closure.

     Communicating the situation to the public and the media at a press conference isn't going to be easy.  It's a small community in the rural South.  One where people desperately want to believe all the bad stuff happened in the past.  Mr. Spearman was a much loved and respected teacher. 

     "He was about to smash their fantasies of safety and security.  He was about to smash one of their idols.  He was going to have to drag them into a new reality where people they knew, people they'd known all their lives, were monsters with human faces."

     Sadly all that isn't the only evil going on in Charon County.  Racism is very much alive and well.  Titus, their first Black sheriff is caught between those who think he plays the race card too much and those who see him as a sell out.  When a social justice oriented minister accuses him of selling out, he replies:

     "You stand there and you quote Bible verses to me about the oppressed, and then have the nerve to accuse me of tap-dancing with these motherfuckers.  Like I stopped being Black when I put on that star.  Watching them boys march down Main Street extolling the honor of Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee makes me sick to my stomach.  But unless they break the law there's nothing I can do."

     If you're a true hard core chiller affecianado you owe it to yourself to put All The Sinners Bleed at the top of your summer reading list.

On a purrrsonal note, it's another scorcher of a day.  I went to campus.  I collected food for me and clothes for Swap Shop at Black Bear Exchange.  I delivered clothes to Upward Bound.  I picked up journals Kevin had found for me for one of the Upward Bound workshops I'm running next week.  I came home 🏡 soaked in sweat.  (Jules)

It's muggy in the house 🏠 even with the windows open.  It isn't easy wearing a fur coat in July.  (Tobago)

A great big shout out goes out to Eugene and all the others who have to work outside in the heat and humidity.

Tobago and Jules Hathaway 

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