These Black Winged Ones
W.H. Pugmire
Myth Ink Books
2014
Reviewed by David Goudsward

Myth Ink has initiated a new series of chapbooks. And if this first one is any indication, it bodes well for the series. The debut is by none other than the prose poet of Sesqua Valley, W.H. Pugmire. This is a small chapbook, under 40 pages including introduction and biographic notes, and the $9 price tag reflects that. For a new Pugmire story, that is more than reasonable.

The book includes an introduction by Pete Rawlik, who is no slouch in the art of Lovecratian horror either. The Rawlik piece is less an introduction to the story as an introduction on the friendship of the two writers.

The story is based on a section of Lovecraft’s “The Call of Cthulhu” about Inspector Legrasse’s raid of a cult mid-ceremony in the swamps south of New Orleans. The captured cultists all deny they took place in a ritual murders, claiming it was the Black Winged Ones they had summoned.

Eleanor Whisk has come to this malevolent place in the woods, for Miss Whisk is a desperate woman. She has never dreamt and has taken to perusing the occult as means to dream. So she allows herself to be led to this unhallowed ground by a mad poet of New Orleans, who has heard that this ancient gathering spot of unspeakable rituals can inspire dreams. As the maiden and the poet will learn, the line between dream and nightmare is gossamer fine.