Mount Misery

Systema Paradoxa #28

by James Chambers

Cryptid investigators, Ben Keep and Annetta Maikels, left "normal" behind a long time ago. They've peeked behind the curtains of existence, glimpsed beneath the weft and weave of accepted reality.

They don't fully understand all they've seen, but they've learned to keep an open mind—and that there's no point in hiding when strange beings tap you on the shoulder and ask for help.

But what happens when something fundamental and essential goes wrong behind the veil? Following a string of reports of inexplicable, yet eerily similar, experiences around Long Island, Ben and Annetta find themselves exploring a frightening mystery.

Something vital has broken... Can they figure out how to fix it before reality unravels?

96 pages, Paperback

Published November 21, 2025

About the author

James Chambers writes tales of horror, crime, fantasy, and science fiction. He is the author of The Engines of Sacrifice, a collection of four Lovecraftian-inspired novellas published in 2011 by Dark Regions Press which Publisher’s Weekly described as “…chillingly evocative….” He is also the author of the short fiction collection Resurrection House (Dark Regions Press, 2009). Most recently, Dark Quest Books published The Dead Bear Witness and Tears of Blood, volume one and two in his Corpse Fauna novella series. Volume three, The Dead in Their Masses, will be published in late 2013. In August 2005 Die Monster Die Books published his first short story collection, The Midnight Hour: Saint Lawn Hill and Other Tales, created in collaboration with illustrator Jason Whitley.

His short stories have been published in the anthologies Bad-Ass Faeries, Bad-Ass Faeries 2: Just Plain Bad, Bad-Ass Faeries 3: In All Their Glory, Bad Cop No Donut, Barbarians at the Jumpgate, Breach the Hull, By Other Means, Crypto-Critters (Volume 1 and Volume 2), Dark Furies, The Dead Walk, The Dead Walk Again, Deep Cuts, The Domino Lady: Sex as a Weapon, Dragon’s Lure, The Green Hornet Chronicles, Hardboiled Cthulhu, Hear Them Roar, Hellfire Lounge, In An Iron Cage, Lost Worlds of Space and Time (Volume 1), Mermaids 13, New Blood, No Longer Dreams, Sick: An Anthology of Illness, So It Begins, To Hell in a Fast Car, Walrus Tales, Weird Trails, and Warfear; the chapbook Mooncat Jack; and the magazines Bare Bone, Cthulhu Sex, and Allen K’s Inhuman.

His tale “A Wandering Blackness,” one of two published in Lin Carter’s Doctor Anton Zarnak, Occult Detective, received an honorable mention in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, Sixteenth Annual Collection.

He has also written numerous comic books including Leonard Nimoy’s Primortals, the critically acclaimed “The Revenant” in Shadow House, and most recently a Midnight Hour story for the comics anthology Negative Burn.

He is a member of the Horror Writers Association and the current chairperson of its membership committee.

He lives in New York.

Reviews

[Patrick S. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've returned to this series a few times as the idea of giving different authors stories of cryptids and writing whole stories in whatever fashion they want is a really good idea with a lot of avenues for creative storytelling. I think what Chambers did here is provide an interesting story with his own take on the mythology and developed a wonderful novella that doesn't give you everything you want from a full novel, but there are so many creative choices that build up his story from the original story that I found myself enjoying it a lot.

Chambers uses the mysterious area of Mount Misery and combines it with elements of the legendary cryptid king himself - Mothman! He also uses elements of the Mothman story such as men in black sightings, Ingrid Cole, John Keel's research, theories of Mothman, and adds a few other paranormal elements to convey his story of a research couple who is trying to find out the real story in their spare time and provides the reader with elements of those research in the form of audio transcripts and write ups from the main character and his wife.

The narrative interviews characters, along with the investigator's stories, from past events and adds to the main storyline. There are some amazingly creepy images in the storytelling especially visits from men in black and some odd legged spiders. Fans of the Mothman story will find the ending compelling and that Chambers picks a lane of explanation to fulfill his story while not explaining every odd piece of the puzzle shows the restraint he has as an author to let the reader wonder what the explaniation is of other elements.

I had a lot of fun with this story and Chambers provides creepy prose elements that builds the atmosphere that transports the reader to Mount Misery and maybe beyond. Final Grade - A

[Reva Fowler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mount Misery is a cohesive, compelling story that weaves together a number of well-known paranormal and mythological elements around the foundation concept and history of the Mothman legend. The linear storyline is augmented by a series of first-hand accounts from characters interviewed by the couple who are at the center if the story. As they slowly make sense of the experiences of themselves and others, the author infuses the narrative with creepy images and eerily disturbing depictions. In the end, while the primary questions are answered, Chambers leaves us to speculate on the trailing threads and wider implications. It is a masterful work of storytelling that condenses a novel’s worth of atmosphere, impact, and ideas into a novella-sized work of art.

[Christopher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anyone who has ever driven on Long Island, particularly at night, will get weird feelings that strange things are happening around them. This tale brings that to life, adding Mothman, Men in Black and a mystery needing to be unraveled.

Ben Keep and Annetta Maikels know that reality isn't what it appears to be. They investigate the paranormal and find it difficult to turn down a request for help, especially when the paranormal come asking for help in their own unusual way.

It's a fun ride, much more fund than actually driving along the Southern State or Ocean Parkway.

This book, which is part of a series of Cryptid tales, is a standalone story. Some references are made to earlier stories, but you don't need to read those first. show less