Back in November, Josh Darling and Jacque Day at Carnage House invited me to write a holiday story, and today it’s here! I can’t wait to share it with you!
“The Conqueror Germ” is a cocktail that mixes a mall Santa, a retired teacher shouting 19th century poetry, and a brand-new type of vaccine, and then shakes (you) thoroughly. Swallow it down in one gulp for maximum effect!
Oh, and it comes with a side of catharsis. This might be my most cathartic story. People are saying it. All the people. Over the last year, we’ve seen the administration destroy decades of research in the field of public health. “The Conqueror Germ” asks what happens when these same people put forward a solution of their own.
Of course, fear and distrust of the government isn’t new. This story, in particular, has its roots in a movie from over fifty years ago.
I wasn’t born when George C. Scott’s Rage hit theaters in 1972, and I was still too young to watch it when it came to the Movie Channel—but that didn’t stop me.
By the time it came around to my dad’s home television, I was old enough to be shaken. It gave me my first inkling that sometimes the government looks out for its own interests, not ours.
Not long after Rage, I encountered Stephen King’s early stories involving the Shop, and the idea of a corrupt, secretive government running experiments on its own people and then covering them up lodged itself in my psyche. I certainly wasn’t alone. It was just my time.
I’m thrilled to present the fruits of that childhood trauma in a piece of holiday horror that I’m proud to have my name on, and prouder still to have in the pages of Carnage House!
And while you’re there, please be sure to check out another story: “The Last Christmas,” by my friend Jacque Day. It asks what happens when Santa tries to deliver presents over the closed airspace of Venezuela, and you don’t want to miss it.
R.E. Dyer 
What are you thinking?