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Fugue Devil: Resurgence
A compelling and frighteningly perceptive collection of chilling tales from master raconteur Stephen Mark Rainey
“A consummate storyteller… at the top of his game.” – Richard Chizmar
Come and join us as we celebrate the 30th anniversary of “Fugue Devil,” Stephen Mark Rainey’s quintessential scare-your-pants-off story, with this all-new edition that features 11 additional tales to wither your soul and curl your
– A thrilling midnight adventure turns into a dawning horror for two boys.
– A dirge for the dead; if you hear it, it’s too late.
– A terror in the night that echoes through the years.
– Hell is just a stone’s throw away.
– To read the play brings on madness, to perform the play…
– Her music cast a spell because, of course, she was a witch.
– In this wine lies the darkest truth.
– When the stars are right, the sky will fall.
– Voices from the static hint at horrors to come.
– “I am John, your host. I have much to look forward to,” he said with a grotesque smile.
– Something inhuman from the future lurks in the shadows of the past…
– Will capturing the image of a devilish horror render it powerless? Or simply draw its inescapable gaze to you?
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“A consummate storyteller… at the top of his game.” – Richard Chizmar
Come and join us as we celebrate the 30th anniversary of “Fugue Devil,” Stephen Mark Rainey’s quintessential scare-your-pants-off story, with this all-new edition that features 11 additional tales to wither your soul and curl your
– A thrilling midnight adventure turns into a dawning horror for two boys.
– A dirge for the dead; if you hear it, it’s too late.
– A terror in the night that echoes through the years.
– Hell is just a stone’s throw away.
– To read the play brings on madness, to perform the play…
– Her music cast a spell because, of course, she was a witch.
– In this wine lies the darkest truth.
– When the stars are right, the sky will fall.
– Voices from the static hint at horrors to come.
– “I am John, your host. I have much to look forward to,” he said with a grotesque smile.
– Something inhuman from the future lurks in the shadows of the past…
– Will capturing the image of a devilish horror render it powerless? Or simply draw its inescapable gaze to you?
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- GenresHorror
376 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 30, 2022
7 people are currently reading
18 people want to read
About the author
Stephen Mark Rainey
82 books103 followersStephen Mark Rainey is the author of numerous novels, including BALAK, THE LEBO COVEN, DARK SHADOWS: DREAMS OF THE DARK (with Elizabeth Massie), BLUE DEVIL ISLAND, THE HOUSE AT BLACK TOOTH POND, and others, including several in Elizabeth Massie's Ameri-Scares Series for Young Readers. In addition, Mark's work includes six short story collections; over 200 published works of short fiction; and the scripts for several DARK SHADOWS audio productions, which feature members of the original ABC-TV series cast. For ten years, he edited the multi-award-winning DEATHREALM magazine and, most recently, the best-selling anthology, DEATHREALM: SPIRITS (Shortwave Publishing). He has also edited anthologies for Delirium Press, Chaosium, and Arkham House. Mark lives in Martinsville, VA, with his wife, Kimberly, and a passel of precocious house cats. He is a regular panelist on the weekly Lovecraft eZine Podcast and an active member of the Horror Writers Association.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
May 5, 2022
If you read it, it will hook you.
I thoroughly enjoyed this collection of tales that provide just the right mix of horror with suspense, interspersed with elements of science fiction and even whimsy. These stories have the feel of having been written by someone who grew up watching "The Twilight Zone" and "The Outer Limits," which is just the kind of alternate-reality fiction I enjoy. These works aren't just frightening in the moment; they're thoughtful and well-crafted. They stick with you.
The first two entries and the final story are all connected, creating a tidy bookend feel to the collection - a notable and welcome distinction from most such compilations. They're also among my favorites. The underlying premise that one's fate is sealed if one chances to see the titular demon-monster, the Fugue Devil, is a powerful one that's been echoed to some degree in more recent sensory-based thrillers such as "Bird Box" (another favorite of mine) and "A Quiet Place." But you'd be hard-pressed to find it more skillfully executed than it is here. And Rainey did it first.
Other highlights for me included:
- "Somewhere, My Love," which is more wistful fantasy than horror, and deftly done.
- The disquieting "When Jarly Calls" (I may not go wine tasting again anytime soon).
- The surreal "Escalation," with its killer (literally) twist.
- "Pons Devana," which is set in Roman Britain and offers a troubling brew of sorcery, dark science fiction, and psychological horror.
- "Messages From a Dark Deity," which contained a particular scene that shocked the hell out of me.
Having lived in southern Virginia, I recognized the strong sense of place the author has created: The setting runs through many of these stories. At times, the fictional setting Aiken Mill itself conjures up the a sense of dread and foreboding that set the stage for what's to come.
I highly recommend "Fugue Devil: Resurgence" for any fan of Rainey's work and of suspense, horror, and psychological thrillers in general. You won't go wrong with this one.
I thoroughly enjoyed this collection of tales that provide just the right mix of horror with suspense, interspersed with elements of science fiction and even whimsy. These stories have the feel of having been written by someone who grew up watching "The Twilight Zone" and "The Outer Limits," which is just the kind of alternate-reality fiction I enjoy. These works aren't just frightening in the moment; they're thoughtful and well-crafted. They stick with you.
The first two entries and the final story are all connected, creating a tidy bookend feel to the collection - a notable and welcome distinction from most such compilations. They're also among my favorites. The underlying premise that one's fate is sealed if one chances to see the titular demon-monster, the Fugue Devil, is a powerful one that's been echoed to some degree in more recent sensory-based thrillers such as "Bird Box" (another favorite of mine) and "A Quiet Place." But you'd be hard-pressed to find it more skillfully executed than it is here. And Rainey did it first.
Other highlights for me included:
- "Somewhere, My Love," which is more wistful fantasy than horror, and deftly done.
- The disquieting "When Jarly Calls" (I may not go wine tasting again anytime soon).
- The surreal "Escalation," with its killer (literally) twist.
- "Pons Devana," which is set in Roman Britain and offers a troubling brew of sorcery, dark science fiction, and psychological horror.
- "Messages From a Dark Deity," which contained a particular scene that shocked the hell out of me.
Having lived in southern Virginia, I recognized the strong sense of place the author has created: The setting runs through many of these stories. At times, the fictional setting Aiken Mill itself conjures up the a sense of dread and foreboding that set the stage for what's to come.
I highly recommend "Fugue Devil: Resurgence" for any fan of Rainey's work and of suspense, horror, and psychological thrillers in general. You won't go wrong with this one.
February 1, 2024
Reviewed by Carson Buckingham
This collection from Stephen Mark Rainey is among the best ones I’ve read. Each story is a shining gem and if you enjoy Lovecraftian horror, there is much that will please you here. This book is labeled “30th Anniversary” not because all of the stories are 30 years old, but because the main monster, the Fugue Devil, is. But there are monsters aplenty in this book.
The concept of the titular character is culled directly from Rainey’s nightmares as a boy, and upon reading this fact, my heart broke and bled for the child who experienced this hideous night terror.
Rainey tells the stories in this collection from Beckham, Virginia, and the surrounding areas—real places. As a matter of fact, he still lives in his grandfather’s old home next to the “Fugue Devil Woods,” as he calls them. It is in this house that he had his initial night terrors, and even now, he still gets a little shiver when he looks at the woods at night.
The first story, “Fugue Devil,” and the last story, “The Devil’s Eye,” bookend the collection nicely, with the reappearance of the same monster whose strength, like Dracula, is that people refuse to believe in it until it is too late. A masterful handling.
“Threnody” is a story about a grandson’s inadvertent summoning of something fearful, finishing what his grandfather began many years ago. It is the second story of “The Fugue Devil” three. I would advise the reader to read these three in order, then go back and read the others.
I loved all these stories, but for me, standouts, besides the three already mentioned, are:
“Short Wave”—kids trying to pick up Apollo 11 astronauts on the moon end up tapping into something a whole lot more earthshaking.
“Masque of the Queen”—an actress, desperate for a role, is cast in an odd stage production of The King in Yellow. The dreamlike quality in this is nothing short of genius.
“Somewhere, My Love”—a departure from the horrific monster theme, this is about a music teacher who can draw amazing things musically from her pupils…especially one.
5 stars—Highly recommended.
Buy one for yourself and one for a friend.
This collection from Stephen Mark Rainey is among the best ones I’ve read. Each story is a shining gem and if you enjoy Lovecraftian horror, there is much that will please you here. This book is labeled “30th Anniversary” not because all of the stories are 30 years old, but because the main monster, the Fugue Devil, is. But there are monsters aplenty in this book.
The concept of the titular character is culled directly from Rainey’s nightmares as a boy, and upon reading this fact, my heart broke and bled for the child who experienced this hideous night terror.
Rainey tells the stories in this collection from Beckham, Virginia, and the surrounding areas—real places. As a matter of fact, he still lives in his grandfather’s old home next to the “Fugue Devil Woods,” as he calls them. It is in this house that he had his initial night terrors, and even now, he still gets a little shiver when he looks at the woods at night.
The first story, “Fugue Devil,” and the last story, “The Devil’s Eye,” bookend the collection nicely, with the reappearance of the same monster whose strength, like Dracula, is that people refuse to believe in it until it is too late. A masterful handling.
“Threnody” is a story about a grandson’s inadvertent summoning of something fearful, finishing what his grandfather began many years ago. It is the second story of “The Fugue Devil” three. I would advise the reader to read these three in order, then go back and read the others.
I loved all these stories, but for me, standouts, besides the three already mentioned, are:
“Short Wave”—kids trying to pick up Apollo 11 astronauts on the moon end up tapping into something a whole lot more earthshaking.
“Masque of the Queen”—an actress, desperate for a role, is cast in an odd stage production of The King in Yellow. The dreamlike quality in this is nothing short of genius.
“Somewhere, My Love”—a departure from the horrific monster theme, this is about a music teacher who can draw amazing things musically from her pupils…especially one.
5 stars—Highly recommended.
Buy one for yourself and one for a friend.
August 5, 2022
My book review for Fugue Devil: Resurgence first appeared in The Horror Zine (https://www.thehorrorzine.com/) . It is reposted here with permission.
What started out as a dream for a young Stephen Mark Rainey turns into nightmares for his fictional people in Fugue Devil: Resurgence. In his introduction to this collection of thirteen tales of, mostly, the unfortunate, he notes how his younger self was “most enamored of monster movies” and how he “religiously collected copies of Famous Monsters of Filmland, Castle of Frankenstein, [and] The Monster Times.” These were monsterkid magazines that showcased his favorite cinematic horrors. Indeed, Rainey’s allusions to literary and cinematic themes pepper his stories, putting the salt in the wounds he inflicts on those caught between this world and those mysterious other ones his horrors hail from.
It is through these other worlds that his pulp-style approach (a focus more on outward events rather than inwardly emotional ones) makes him a close relative to H.P. Lovecraft and Robert W. Chambers, a distant one to Robert E. Howard, and a family all his own with his vision of the Fugue Devil; of which, three stories directly pivot on, while relatives of the Great Old Ones appear in the other stories.
Those three stories include Fugue Devil, Threnody, and The Devil’s Eye. Every seventeen years a mysterious event happens to the town of Beckham, Virginia; a monstrous thing that “if you know about it, it knows about you,” emerges from the woods and people go missing. Is it a tall town’s tale or something more sinister? Newly arrived kid around town, Mike, convinces Ronnie to tell him more about the Fugue Devil, and that gets others involved. The terror begins when they decide to see for themselves if the gossip and fear is real or not. Rainey contrasts the terror to come with another kind of terror within Mike’s family, moving this story beyond the pulp-only framework, to better explain Mike’s interest in the Fugue Devil beyond mere curiosity, which provides a stronger motivation for him doing something we all know, from horror movies and horror fiction, will usually prove to be a bad decision.
But where Fugue Devil presents the “present” horror as it stands, Threnody tells us how it possibly started in pure pulp style. Here is where the younger Rainey’s influences and interests foster allusions to Lovecraftian beings and the summoning device in the Evil Dead movie. These allusions involve a scarce and odd book called The Spheres Beyond Sound by Maurice Zann and a reel-to-reel tape recorder. Also written in first person as Fugue Devil, a man inherits his family’s house in Barren Creek, a few miles from the town of Aiken Mill, that is surrounded by dark and brooding woods. He finds the book, falls under its spell, and finds tapes recorded by his grandfather. Listening to those tapes, he turns up the volume and hears the results as his grandfather leads some neighbors in playing music from the book. Need I say more?
With The Devil’s Eye, we return after the events of Fugue Devil, but seventeen years later, when Jack, brother to someone who went missing that fateful night years ago, returns to find the truth. He enlists the aid of a local independent film maker to assist him, to capture proof with a camera, either way. Unfortunately, without him knowing, others are invited to act in the documentary event, and the situation worsens from that point on. More background to the Fugue Devil is provided: as the story goes, it appeared on the summit of Copper Peak when a man from Beckham played his violin to summon it. Still, there remains mystery surrounding why someone would do such a thing and mystery why the Fugue Devil returns every so often to do so much harm.
Moving from the Fugue Devil’s Virginia woods to a necropolis far from Viroconium in Roman Britain, Pons Devana (pons means bridge), leans more toward Robert E. Howard’s sword and sorcery, but with a theme of yet another dark, other, space exerting its evil influence on ours. This is one story that cries out to be made a novel because it ends while still in progress. As it stands, Quintus Marcius is ordered to investigate the maneuverings of centurion Titus Fabius, who is acting strangely. When Marcius finds Fabius, the centurion is wearing peculiar armor he has not seen before. Odder still, Fabius is married to a strange woman and there appear to be rats scuttling around in the shadows, though none are ever seen. Dark rooms and narrow hallways, tombs and crypts, and malevolence hanging in the air do not bode well for Marcius or Fabius. Unseen things grow close and even here Rainey brings the horror to the woods too. The story is reminiscent of the shadow beings in Babylon 5, but we are left with not knowing more beyond the unknown threat emerging from the necropolis.
Turning from Howard to Robert W. Chambers, whose supernatural work figures prominently in Masque of the Queen, we meet a twenty-eight-year-old woman, Kathryn, desperate for an acting job. She finds it with a play whose story follows, oddly enough, the fictional play The King in Yellow. As rehearsals continue, the play and those acting in it, become more and more disturbing and disturbed. Three actors leave but she is convinced to stay. It is at this point that the use of the word “fugue” by Rainey becomes most clear, explaining his approach to each of his stories in this collection. On the one hand, fugue means a musical composition, and we see that in his stories centering around the Fugue Devil and other horrors. The word also means a loss of awareness of one’s identity, and it is here in Masque of the Queen, that the loss of identity becomes all too real as the crescendoing moment in the play, where the character of Cassilda sings her song, and acting gives way to stark terror and another other space intrudes with dire consequences for her.
This other space is set aside, briefly, for an inner one in Somewhere My Love, where a music teacher practices a more personal sorcery on a young student, who continues the spell into adulthood. One gets the feeling this is a more personal and less fictional story for Rainey, but it goes deeper than pulp-style and garners more emotional involvement. The musical summoning theme reappears with a boom When Jarly Calls. A couple on a wine-holiday find out who the true vintner is and what else gets crushed along with the grapes. This story also ends on a more positive note, or so you may hope.
Through all these stories, other-worldly music, bizarre sounds, and big and little monstrous things that should not be seen or heard in a normal world, intrude into the woods, the towns, and the cities with their deadly intentions. This is not a book for those who like happy endings.
Horror fans will appreciate that.
What started out as a dream for a young Stephen Mark Rainey turns into nightmares for his fictional people in Fugue Devil: Resurgence. In his introduction to this collection of thirteen tales of, mostly, the unfortunate, he notes how his younger self was “most enamored of monster movies” and how he “religiously collected copies of Famous Monsters of Filmland, Castle of Frankenstein, [and] The Monster Times.” These were monsterkid magazines that showcased his favorite cinematic horrors. Indeed, Rainey’s allusions to literary and cinematic themes pepper his stories, putting the salt in the wounds he inflicts on those caught between this world and those mysterious other ones his horrors hail from.
It is through these other worlds that his pulp-style approach (a focus more on outward events rather than inwardly emotional ones) makes him a close relative to H.P. Lovecraft and Robert W. Chambers, a distant one to Robert E. Howard, and a family all his own with his vision of the Fugue Devil; of which, three stories directly pivot on, while relatives of the Great Old Ones appear in the other stories.
Those three stories include Fugue Devil, Threnody, and The Devil’s Eye. Every seventeen years a mysterious event happens to the town of Beckham, Virginia; a monstrous thing that “if you know about it, it knows about you,” emerges from the woods and people go missing. Is it a tall town’s tale or something more sinister? Newly arrived kid around town, Mike, convinces Ronnie to tell him more about the Fugue Devil, and that gets others involved. The terror begins when they decide to see for themselves if the gossip and fear is real or not. Rainey contrasts the terror to come with another kind of terror within Mike’s family, moving this story beyond the pulp-only framework, to better explain Mike’s interest in the Fugue Devil beyond mere curiosity, which provides a stronger motivation for him doing something we all know, from horror movies and horror fiction, will usually prove to be a bad decision.
But where Fugue Devil presents the “present” horror as it stands, Threnody tells us how it possibly started in pure pulp style. Here is where the younger Rainey’s influences and interests foster allusions to Lovecraftian beings and the summoning device in the Evil Dead movie. These allusions involve a scarce and odd book called The Spheres Beyond Sound by Maurice Zann and a reel-to-reel tape recorder. Also written in first person as Fugue Devil, a man inherits his family’s house in Barren Creek, a few miles from the town of Aiken Mill, that is surrounded by dark and brooding woods. He finds the book, falls under its spell, and finds tapes recorded by his grandfather. Listening to those tapes, he turns up the volume and hears the results as his grandfather leads some neighbors in playing music from the book. Need I say more?
With The Devil’s Eye, we return after the events of Fugue Devil, but seventeen years later, when Jack, brother to someone who went missing that fateful night years ago, returns to find the truth. He enlists the aid of a local independent film maker to assist him, to capture proof with a camera, either way. Unfortunately, without him knowing, others are invited to act in the documentary event, and the situation worsens from that point on. More background to the Fugue Devil is provided: as the story goes, it appeared on the summit of Copper Peak when a man from Beckham played his violin to summon it. Still, there remains mystery surrounding why someone would do such a thing and mystery why the Fugue Devil returns every so often to do so much harm.
Moving from the Fugue Devil’s Virginia woods to a necropolis far from Viroconium in Roman Britain, Pons Devana (pons means bridge), leans more toward Robert E. Howard’s sword and sorcery, but with a theme of yet another dark, other, space exerting its evil influence on ours. This is one story that cries out to be made a novel because it ends while still in progress. As it stands, Quintus Marcius is ordered to investigate the maneuverings of centurion Titus Fabius, who is acting strangely. When Marcius finds Fabius, the centurion is wearing peculiar armor he has not seen before. Odder still, Fabius is married to a strange woman and there appear to be rats scuttling around in the shadows, though none are ever seen. Dark rooms and narrow hallways, tombs and crypts, and malevolence hanging in the air do not bode well for Marcius or Fabius. Unseen things grow close and even here Rainey brings the horror to the woods too. The story is reminiscent of the shadow beings in Babylon 5, but we are left with not knowing more beyond the unknown threat emerging from the necropolis.
Turning from Howard to Robert W. Chambers, whose supernatural work figures prominently in Masque of the Queen, we meet a twenty-eight-year-old woman, Kathryn, desperate for an acting job. She finds it with a play whose story follows, oddly enough, the fictional play The King in Yellow. As rehearsals continue, the play and those acting in it, become more and more disturbing and disturbed. Three actors leave but she is convinced to stay. It is at this point that the use of the word “fugue” by Rainey becomes most clear, explaining his approach to each of his stories in this collection. On the one hand, fugue means a musical composition, and we see that in his stories centering around the Fugue Devil and other horrors. The word also means a loss of awareness of one’s identity, and it is here in Masque of the Queen, that the loss of identity becomes all too real as the crescendoing moment in the play, where the character of Cassilda sings her song, and acting gives way to stark terror and another other space intrudes with dire consequences for her.
This other space is set aside, briefly, for an inner one in Somewhere My Love, where a music teacher practices a more personal sorcery on a young student, who continues the spell into adulthood. One gets the feeling this is a more personal and less fictional story for Rainey, but it goes deeper than pulp-style and garners more emotional involvement. The musical summoning theme reappears with a boom When Jarly Calls. A couple on a wine-holiday find out who the true vintner is and what else gets crushed along with the grapes. This story also ends on a more positive note, or so you may hope.
Through all these stories, other-worldly music, bizarre sounds, and big and little monstrous things that should not be seen or heard in a normal world, intrude into the woods, the towns, and the cities with their deadly intentions. This is not a book for those who like happy endings.
Horror fans will appreciate that.
April 30, 2022
A delightfully devilish collection of stories that I enjoyed immensely. Very well written. Spooky af.
March 30, 2023
I had the pleasure of reading the title story and its sequel years ago, and this re-read was every bit as enthralling. In addition to that blast from the past, I enjoyed having an entire collection of new and new to me stories to read. Resurgence was was a fine collection with nary a clunker in the bunch, and honestly, had ignited my interest to delve into some of Mark's other work. I cannot recommend this highly enough, so get to reading!
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews